The X Generation
by Stephen89
Summary: When the Road Rovers go missing, The Master sends out a specially selected team, known as the “X-Generation” to recover them. Everything goes wrong, however, putting the operatives at extreme risk.
1. Abduction

**Here it is, at last. I've been working on the edited version of this story for near-on two and a half months. Even so, I have no doubt whatsoever that it is pock-marked with error, so please tell me if you find something or have questions. These errors will be due mostly to the difference in writing styles of the author (S.C. Wolfe) and the editor (yours truly).**

**I'd like to note that I made very few considerable modifications to this story. I mostly did spelling and grammar work. This remains largely Wolfe's work until somewhere around chapter seven, or so.**

**However, I feel as though this story doesn't work quite right, but when I read it, my mind fills in the details that are missing. Please, tell me where the story needs editing, as I take great pride in my work, and dislike giving anything but my best.**

**Thanks for reading!**

The X-Generation

Original by S.C. Wolfe

Edit and Revisions by Stephen89

**Chapter 1 – Abduction**

The Master looked at the data screen in front of him. He ran his hand over Scout's head, who was fast asleep on the floor. This was the only place (other than in combat) that Scout was ever taken out of his restrainer. When he was with the Master, his interest in ripping things to ribbons seemed to go away. The data tables in front of the Master flashed the latest news updates. He was on the lookout for anything to do with Parvo. Key words were the best thing to look for. "Ransomed, mad scientist, strange militia, unknown weapon," and "ufo sighting" were all of the most common ones. If there was one thing Parvo was poor at, aside from defenses, it was subtly. He was more of the in-your-face kind of villain.

The Master finished scrolling through the latest news-reads, then cut the power to the monitor. Nothing from Pavro, but there was still work to be done in the world. The Master activated the Rover Beacon and went to the transdogmafier room. Blitz and Colleen were the first to arrive. The Master rubbed his forehead, hoping Hunter or Exile would get here double quick, or this was going or get really awkward.

"Ah, pretty girl-dog. How lovely to see you with me here…alone."

"Nah, I don't see that happening." She said running her fingers through her fur.

"Okay, okay. Maybe I'm stepping out of line here, but I don't think our relation ship is making the progress it should be."

Colleen stretched, and gently walked over to Blitz. "Fluffy, darling," she said coolly. Colleen suddenly grabbed Blitz's snout and yanked him to eye level. "Either you're gonna start leaving me alone, or your face is gonna make us a new paint color for these walls! Got it Bub?"

"Dah! Dah!" Blitz yelled, muffled by Colleen's grip.

"Okay, Colleen. I think he gets it." Hunter said. He was leaning against his transdogmafier tube, tossing a tennis ball against the wall. "It's a good show, but let's save the butt kicking for someone more deserving of it."

"Niet, niet! I love this show!" Exile exclaimed. Hunter shook his head with a smile. "Well, is there a sequel then?"

"Hey!" Blitz suddenly butted in. "I am too deserving of a tooshie biting! More deserving than any of you!"

"Well, cant argue with that logic." Colleen mumbled.

Blitz paused to think about what he said. "Oh…uh, I meant to say I'm above getting my tooshie kicked. Why would you want to kick me? I'm too pretty!" he flexed in his combat armor. "And besides, I'm the one who'll be doing all of the tooshie biting!"

"Don't be a weird boy." Exile said rubbing his eyes.

"Well, now that we're all done acting like puppies down there, I'd like to get on to today's objectives." The Master said.

"Yes, sir!" the Rovers stood at attention.

"We have a relatively lax day ahead of us. The U.N. is going to be signing a treaty between the United States and Mexico to support a stronger free trade program with stronger border patrolling. You need to see to it that this is signed, as it's been under some threat from Mexican Cartels. Other than that, there are rumors of unauthorized drilling in Antarctica, in addition to reports of illegal exotic bird trades taking place in Africa. I want you to investigate and tell me if you find anything. That is all." The Master made to leave just as Hunter was calling "Let's hit the road, Rovers," but cut him off at 'road'. "Actually, there's one more thing. Scout's not coming with you this time. Him and I are spending the day with each other."

"I understand, sir." Hunter said. "It's been a while since you two spent time together. Tell us how it goes."

"Oh, Hunter. I interrupted what you were saying. Please, carry on."

"I thought you'd never ask." Hunter said. "Let's hit the road, Rovers!"

The signing of the treaty went much more smoothly that anticipated. The only interruption was then Blitz made the embarrassing discovery that not every toupee in the room was out to get him. Hunter wondered why they took him on U.N. missions anymore. The flight to Africa was a long one. The Rovers passed the time in their own ways. Shag managed to make an MRE both edible _and _tasty, Colleen slept, Blitz practiced flexing his muscles in front of a mirror, while Hunter and Exile went head to head in a game of chess. It was "Rover-chess," though, so the pieces moved however you wanted them to.

Colleen stirred from her sleep. "Eh, Huntie. 'Ow much longer we got to fly?"

Hunter checked the auto-flight gauges. "Just about an hour. Why?"

"Just wondering."

Blitz came over t where the others were sitting. He leaned over to Colleen. "Hey, pretty girl dog. Now that you're awake-"

"Do I know you?"

"Please don't do this," Blitz said as he slumped over. "We're making such progress!" he whined.

"I was wondering if anyone else thought this jet could use some new paint?"

Blitz scooted away. Hunter and Exile shrugged.

The jungle was a horrid place for almost anyone who can't stand heat. It is much more horrid if you're a dog. In addition to the heat, there is the fur on your body. The temperature was well over a hundred degrees that day. Too hot for either Exile or Shag to join the investigation, as it was.

As it was, the remaining three were soaking in sweat and panting heavily. "The Master said that they were only rumors?" Blitz offered, rubbing his forehead with a damp rag.

"No. We can't leave until we know for a fact that there are no bird poachers around." Hunter rebuked the unspoken beg to move on to the next mission. He rubbed the back of his neck. All around them, the sounds of birds filled the air. The rumor had dictated that the smuggling operation was centralized in a small area of jungle that was almost inaccessible.

"Who would come all the way out here just to make a dollar?" Colleen wondered aloud. "There are places with the same birds that are way easier to get to."

"Maybe it was worth the extra work to keep their smuggling operation from detection?" Hunter suggested.

"They'd have been almost undetectable in any other location. Why this one?" Colleen asked. Nobody had an answer.

The trees were growing so thick here, that it was almost impossible to see more than a few meters ahead of their group. "This is ridiculous. I can't see through these trees, I can hardly breathe in this humidity, and I'm getting dehydrated. Huntie, let's turn back. There's nothing here."

Hunter sighed, but nodded. "I guess you're right.

"Dah. Since when are we bird Hunters anyway." Blitz shook himself, sprinkling the ground in sweat.

"Alright, then." Hunter reported back to the ship, where the others were waiting. "There's nothing here. We're off to Antarctica!"

The Rovers spread out over the massive sheet of ice and snow. "Wowski! Was not even this cold and empty in Siberia!" Exile whispered in awe.

Blitz stood shivering in his boots. "Why, why, _why _cant we ever have missions where the weather is nice?"

"Let's just keep our eyes open for anything suspicious." Hunter said.

"Like that?" Colleen asked, pointing at a giant black structure in the clouded distance.

"Yeah! Exactly like that!"

The Rovers made their way over to the building, but it proved only to be the skeleton of a construction sight. "This is odd." Exile muttered looking at the construction. "Why would someone stop building structure when is almost done?"

"I donno. Let's check it out." Hunter suggested.

The building was hardly anything more than a bunch of metal and cement floors. They searched it twice but failed to find anything of consequence. It wasn't until they were leaving the odd structure that Blitz stumbled over a trip wire, hidden in a small snow drift. A net sprung out of a wooden crate near by, sweeping Blitz off of his feet. He gave a cowardly yelp and babbled, "Please don't hurt me. I'm do pretty to die!"

Hunter didn't bother to listen. "Heads up, team! There may be more of them. Shag, Colleen, see if you can get Blitz out of there. Exile, get back to the Sky Rover and get her up and running."

As Shag and Colleen were making their way toward Blitz. They were swept up in a second net. This one had not been triggered via trip wire. It had been triggered manually! Hunter turned to call to Exile, but he only had time to see Exile vanish into a hidden hole in the ground. Hunter heard a rushing sound, and using his super speed to sprint out of the way, narrowly avoided being swept up by a net that had been shot at him. Blitz was already free of his net, but several swishes filled the air, enveloping him in three more. Hunter made a run for Shag and Colleen. If he could cut that net, he'd free two of the Rovers at once. Aside from that and on a personal note, Colleen was being crushed by Shag. He dodged two more nets, but didn't expect the man in full-white camo to step in his way. The man tossed a wire weighed on either end by a small metal ball. The trip wire caught Hunter's feet together, and he fell to the floor, right below Colleen and Shag.

"Didn't see that coming." He flipped over to untie the wire, but found instead that he was surrounded by five gunmen. "Well, I'm gonna call that a day." He said with a smile and a shrug.

"My knight in shining armor." Colleen grunted from under shag's massive bulk.

"Hey, did my best." Hunter argued, but it was all he could say. A black sack was thrown over his head, and a chemical in the cloth made him pass out of consciousness.


	2. The XGeneration Arrives

**Chapter 2 – The X-Generation Arrives**

The Master paced frantically back and forth. The Rovers weren't responding to any of his calls. The last he'd heard from any of them was when Hunter called in a false alarm in Africa. That meant that the Rovers had vanished anywhere between Nigeria and Antarctica. Scout sat near-by, whimpering. Occasionally, it turned into a vicious growl. The Master worried about Scout. He was taking the vanishing of his friends very personally, affecting the poor dog's already disturbed mind.

The Master went over the news lines of the day the Rovers had vanished. There was nothing unusual, which was actually unusual in and of it self. It had been a full five days since the incident, but it felt like it had been weeks! The Master had received no ransom notes, no demands, no contact at all.

The Master had been juggling with several plans to find and retrieve the Rovers over the past few days. He tried contacting Rovers from other nations, but all of the other bases were tied up. There weren't many, after all. No search and rescue teams were turning anything up. Satellite scans showed nothing, and sonar of the ocean floor revealed nothing unusual. With the resources at hand, there was only one option the Master had yet to eliminate.

Sheppard, the Master, sighed and looked at Scout. "Well, Scout. What do you say we find us some specialists?" Scout gave a soft whimper. "I know, boy. I don't like it either, but the Rovers are in trouble. This may be our only hope. _Their_ only hope. Every other Rover on land and in space is on the look out, but nothing is just going to jump at us."

Scout sat up and growled.

"I'm sorry too." The Master turned to the control panel and opened a new window on the display. It was a window he had seldom used. "Activating program file: Candidate Finder 1.0." This was the program that Sheppard had designed for locating all Rover candidates.

Sheppard thought quickly. What traits should he be looking for?

He'd need hunters and trackers, but in the regular Rovers' absence, these dogs would need to carry out regular duties as well. He needed soldiers and fighters who knew when to let words do their fighting. For almost ten minutes, the Master plucked away at his keyboard, adding, and even removing desired traits.

"Activating program, now." He said at last with a deep sigh. Sheppard tapped the "Enter" key next to the number pad on his keyboard.

The program that launched hadn't been run since the Road Rovers had been selected for enlistment. Being so, the monitor flashed an image of Hunter before the program kicked into gear. An image of the world opened up. It slowly began spinning. A solid red line ran vertically along the globe. As it passed over the various lands and countries, little red spots appeared. There were about seventy.

"And now, we narrow down the selection." The Master dialed several small command keys. Pictures of each dog appeared on screen. The Master began by eliminating all small dogs. Transdogmafying small dogs had only resulted in embarrassing failure in the past. A multitude of canidates still remained.

The Master went about searching out every bit of information he could about each one of the dogs. A small number of them had almost no data whatsoever. Strays. There were a small number in particular that caught his eye, but that small number was eight. Rover teams were typically kept around five to six members. Covert and subtle while still a force to be reckoned with.

The Master smiled a little. The best part of transdogmafying any dog for the first time was looking into ability. Most dogs had some form of super power; rather they were great like Exile's strength, eyesight, fire and ice powers, or small, like Colleen's mastery of unarmed combat. Initially, when Sheppard had been reading through Colleen's "list of powers" he had thought she'd be the least valuable asset to the team. She screened as useless. He had never been so happy to be so wrong.

The Master remembered suddenly that those Rovers were no longer by his side. He felt a ping on his heart, like losing a loved one. Only in his case, it was five loved ones. Scout sensed the change in The Master's mood and came to his side. Shepherd looked down at his oldest canine friend, sighing. "Well, Scout. I can't widdle it down any more. These sixteen have the best potential, but these two here wouldn't be bad either. That gives us a list of eighteen…" Scout looked intently at the dogs on screen. "How about you choose the team, Scout?" Scout looked up in shock. "Well, sure. You'll be working with them more than I will. Why not?"

Scout understood. He looked back to the screen. Shepherd stepped back. Scout, or "Muzzle" as the Rovers called him, was trapped between being a Rover and a regular dog. The Master had failed so far to fix the insanity that came with the state, but in all accounts, Scout's insanity _was_ one of his strengths. Scout carefully pushed a series of keys and buttons. He had selected a team of six new members.

"Okay, Scout. Are you sure?" Scout nodded. "Well, then; Scout, I give you the X-Generation Rovers." Shepherd pressed on a series of buttons and yanked a lever, activating the "Rover call-to-action," the same mechanical call that had summoned the original Rover team, and that called them every time the world was in need of their help.

The dogs would be receiving the call as Shepherd stood there. They may dislike it, like it (as Hunter had), or even fear it (as Shag still did), but they'd all reply to it.

_Four house dogs, one of which was a runaway, and two street strays. Not so different from the original crew_, The Master noticed. Scout was a mixture of emotion. He seemed rather excited, but depressed at the same moment. After all, these new dogs were, in a manner of speaking, _replacing_ Scout's old friends. Scout whimpered and The Master patted his head. "We'll get them back, boy. Don't you worry about that." The Master hoped he sounded surer than he felt.

Soon enough, the transdogmafier's tubes began filling with the bodies of dogs. The familiar smoke rolled out of the machine and the first two "X-Gen" Rovers stepped forward. A Newfoundland and a Malamute. The Master made a side note to divert more funds to the food supply of the base.

The next two stepped forward. A Northern Inuit (looking almost exactly like the malamute), and an English Shepherd. The next after them was a Border Collie. There was a short moment's pause before the last dog stepped out of the machine. The Black Norwegian Elkhound walked slowly, seeming less sure of himself than the other Rovers.

"Welcome. My name is Professor Shepherd, though many of your allies call me The Master. You have been hand-selected from every dog on the face of the earth because you and you alone tested the best for the task I am about to give you. I know this is sudden, but you will be permitted time to get comfortable with your new life style before sent into the field." The Master paused for a moment to look at the diagnostics of each dog. The computer was registering their various powers as he spoke. "Now, then. If any one of you wishes not to remain here, I will not hold you back. You will be turned back to your original forms, and sent back to your regular lives. This will not be as easy to do later on, so if any one of you whishes to leave, now would be the time to go. Let's see a show of hands. Who will remain?"

All six of the dogs paused a moment to think; five of them stood at attention and raised a hand. Only the Elkhound waited. He was inspecting his new body and picking at the armor. He nodded slowly, stood at attention and raised his hands. _Good,_ The Master thought, _we have at least one critical thinker._

"Okay then, thank you all. I will now request that each member step forward and present their name and country of origin." The Master already knew the country of origin, but this would tell him if they had something to hide.

The Newfoundland was first. "The name is Brekenridge. I'm from a small family estate in the northern most part of New York." He said.

The English Shepherd. "M' name's Tialer, an' 'm from Australia." Tialer? That was an odd name for a girl.

The Elkhound. "I have no name that I know of. I was born in Canada and jumped over the border, eventually winding-up in Wyoming." He said, a tad silently.

"That's nothing to be ashamed of. We as a team will come to find you a name." The Master said.

The Malamute took a rather graceful bow. "I am Sophie; from Scotland." Sheppard wondered at her bow.

The Border Collie was next. "Name's Chance. From Poland." He gave a polite smile.

And lastly, the Inuit. "Name's Bliss. England."

"As a note for the future, this is not a formal organization. I'd hope you come to see this place as a home, and the other operatives around you as family. Relax, and allow yourselves to breath a bit more comfortably." Sheppard noted aloud.

Scout had seemed to pick the recruits from two very distinct geographic regions. That was a tad strange, but The Master assumed it was something to do with the loose screws in his dog's head. "Very well, then. Welcome to the Rovers. Take a moment to greet your fellow team members."

The Master had somehow or another forgotten how dogs greet one another. He rubbed his eyes while the dogs made acquaintance. The horror was over in a few short moments. "That out of the way, the computer has finished analyzing your unique powers and gifts." The Master said as he pulled out a hand-held computer pad.

"Woh. We get powers?" Chance asked.

"No, you were born with them. Almost every man, woman and dog on earth has them from the day they're born. Very few ever learn how to use their gifts; very few of us even learn that abilities exist at all. One of the major perks of the transdogmafier is that it makes these powers readily available to the changed individual.

"Bliss, you have the power to control the air currents immediately around you. For all intents and purposes, we call this 'Pulse'. Chance, I wasn't able to find any powers to speak of in you, but your brain has elevated functions in many areas, especially in your cerebral cortex. I'll require your further cooperation to learn more. Breckenridge…Brek, for short?...good. You have an incredible muscular structure. The best I can assume is that you possess super strength. Sophie, somehow, you are able to control climate in your immediate sight, but as far as I can see, you are only able to chill or freeze things. It doesn't appear as though you have any control over high temperature. I'd like time to explore further. Ms. Tialer, you have no powers that show up on screen, but that does not mean you don't have any. We will see with time. Last, but not least, the Elkhound." The Master stopped, and checked the diagnostics. "You have a rare gift, but we have had trouble controlling it in the past with other Rovers. You are capable of short-range telekinesis, or teleportation. Your power will be the hardest to master, but likely the most useful once you have done so."

Scout hopped up next to The Master in his restraining kart. How had he gotten into that thing? The Master shook his head and dismissed the thought.

"Who the blazes' is that?" Bliss asked.

"This, is my oldest canine friend, Scout, whom you may well come to know as Muzzle." Shepherd said as Scout jumped up and down in his restrainer.

Chance raised an eyebrow and Sophie shrugged.

The new Rovers were shown to their quarters, which were in the hall right next to the Road Rovers' quarters. The Master paused and looked down the empty hall for a longing moment before he turned back to the recruits. "Tomorrow, we will begin testing the individual powers, weapon control, and personal assets of each one of you. Until then, make yourselves at home and get to know one another better."

"Yes, Master!" the Rovers replied…almost in unison, too. They'd grow as a team quite nicely.

Once The Master left, there was a long pause. Nobody moved. They were all given two combat armor suits, including the ones they had were already wearing, and casual clothes enough to last a week. Breckenridge looked curiously at his muscles, but felt awkward for doing so. It was Sophie who finally broke the quiet, and it seemed to shatter like glass. She walked over to the nameless dog.

"So, you don't 'ave a name, eh? Well, that's no good. We can't go around calling you Elkhound. That would be racist." She joked. The elkhound twisted his head in confusion, obviously not too good at humor.

"You remind me of an old cousin of mine." Brek said. "He got that same confused look in his eyes when we tried to tell him jokes. His name was Bruce. His master named him after Bruce Springsting."

Sophie wagged her tail and bounced a little. "Oh! That would be lovely, but we can't name him Bruce. Look at 'im. He's not a Bruce at all!"

"Well, he's not exactly 'Buddy' material either, is he?" Chance asked with a sarcastic wave of his arms. He froze in place, seeming to fight off a sudden headache.

"How about we just leave it alone for now?" the elkhound asked.

"No, cause' then it's going to drive me insane." Sophie said.

Bliss was waving her hand slowly through the air. "Woh, cool. Check it out!" As her fingers moved through the air, they made lines as though she were leaving a trail of smoke. She slowly started moving her hands faster and faster, and the smoke responded. Suddenly, it vanished. "Weird. It only works when I breathe a certain way."

Bliss began making the smoke again. Brek reached out and brushed it with his hand. The smoke jumped, making a lout _clack_ noise, and Brek went flying across the empty room and hit the opposite wall with a loud crash.

"Oh jeeze, oh jeeze! I'm sorry!" Bliss called as she ran next to him.

"Bah, it's fine. Scared me lifeless, that's all." Brek laughed, brushing off his shoulder.

"But you just went flying into the wall! Look, you even left an indent in the metal!" Chance called from the center of the room.

Bliss looked at herself and shivered. "It was horrifying! I actually _felt_ your hand when you touched that smoke stuff. I jumped because it was just so weird. I saw it was you and just wanted to slap you for creepin' me out, and the smoke just did what I wanted to do."

"They're ripples, actually. They just look like smoke." Chance said.

"How do you know?"

"I can see them. They look almost exactly like smoke, but if you look through them, the image on the other side is twisted like when you look into a fun house mirror. Or through a glass bottle." He explained.

Bliss began waving her hand again.

"Yeah, I see what you mean." Tialer noted.

"By the way, do we have to call you Tialer?" Bliss asked.

"Well, yeah. It's my name, after all." She replied.

"Not what I mean. It's a boy's name." Bliss argued.

"Yeah. There are a lot of names that go to both guys and girls. Sam for example."

Bliss gave up with a shrug. Sophie stepped back into attention. "Eh, speaking of names, we still gotta name elkhound here."

The elkhound scratched one of his pointed ears. "Really, I'm fine."

"Yeah, mate. You may be, but I aint. Can't call you Elky, now can I?" Tialer said in a not-so-friendly way.

"I suppose not."

Sophie smiled, but stopped cold for a moment. "Is anyone else freezing their butts off?" everyone shook their heads. Sophie held out a hand. It was shivering so bad that it was hard to make out the shaped of her fingers.

"Blimy! Look a' that!" Bliss whispered in awe. Sophie's hand was giving off a white cloud. Brek looked at it curiously and reached out to touch it. Bliss slapped his hand, and he yipped in shock.

"Don't you learn your lessons?" Bliss demanded.

"Sorry. Kind of a slow learner." He smiled.

Chance looked at the white fog. "You triggered your power somehow. I expect that that fog is some form of super-frozen air. I don't advise anyone but Sophie touches it."

"Great. Two of us have smoke powers. Let's see if one of us can get smoke to come out of our ears!" Brek laughed. "Make you look pretty scary, wouldn't it?"

"Breckenridge, shut up." Tialer said.

"Excuse me, miss." Brek stretched. "I'm going to see if we have a weight room here. I'd like to see what 'extraordinary muscular structure' means, exactly." Brek walked out of the room.

"Idiot. He could hurt himself." Tialer said.

"What's with you?" Sophie asked.

"Huh? Oh, sorry. It's just that that guy rubs me the wrong way." She shrugged and picked at her armor in a futile effort to vanish.

Sophie stood up, looking at her hands. "I can't get it to go away." She announced with some level of panic in her voice.

"Did you try breathing?" Bliss asked waving her hand through the air.

"No, actually. Good idea." Sophie took a slow breath, and let it go. Her breath turned to the same super-chilled fog the second it left her mouth. She looked at Bliss. "Okay, not such a good idea."

Chance studied her posture. "Try relaxing." He said plainly. Sophie looked at him for a short moment, and gave a deep sigh. Her shoulders slumped slightly and the fog vaporized.

Everyone turned to the elkhound. "So, what about you? Let's see if you can figure out your power." Tialer suggested.

The elkhound put his hands up. "Uh, no thank you. You heard The Master. Mine is dangerous if I don't know what I'm doing."

"Did you _not_ see me toss Brek across the room?" Bliss asked pointing at the dent in the wall.

"Yeah, and had a laugh too. Now let's imagine the same scenario, only I'm a splat on the wall rather than a dent and a headache." The elkhound said in a weak voice. He didn't take his eyes off of the wall.

"Can we call him 'Whiney'?" Tialer asked Sophie.

"No! That'd be just downright cruel." She exclaimed. The elkhound chuckled to himself.

"Anyway, we still have a few hours left in the day. I'd like to get to know this place a little better." Chance said.

"How do you know how much time is left in the day. I don't see any clocks and incase I'm missing a chapter, I'm pretty sure we're underground." Tialer jutted.

"I just know." Chance said plainly.

"Is that part of your power? What else can you do?" Bliss asked.

"I've been using my power from the moment I stepped out of the transgodmafier. I just didn't realize it until we were in this room. Enhanced brain function…it means I know things. As a simple example, I know the approximate time of day, and I saw that the smoke emitted by Bliss is actually just hyperactive air." Chance smiled inwardly. "It's giving me a heck of a headache, though. I feel like someone's trying to crush my skull in with their bare hands."

Sophie was going to say something, but turned her attention to the elkhound. "So, have you ever had a master before? Back in the other room, you said you were a stray." The elkhound's upper lip twitched. He turned and went to his private quarter. "Guess not. Hey, Chance. Why's he so sensitive?"

"I can't tell. I can't read thoughts. Honestly, I'm glad I can't. That'd just be intrusive to read the darkest secretes of everyone I ever saw."

At that moment Breckenridge walked back into the room. "So as it turns out, enhanced muscles are exactly what they sound like. I lifted the entire weight rack with one arm, and had strength to spare." The Newfoundland kissed his muscle. "I can get used to this."

"Speak for yourself." Tialer said. "I didn't even get any powers."

"You don't know that." Bliss pointed out. "It just didn't show up on a computer."

"Either way, I'm going to check this place out. You're all welcome to join me?" Sophie said. Everyone nodded, and followed Sophie as she led the way to see what this new home had to offer. As soon as they had left the empty common room the elkhound stepped out of his room. He sighed and looked at his hands. They were shaking. He was scared. He had made his "splat" protest honestly because he didn't want to try. Now that he thought about it, however, his power scared him to no end.

Sophie. _Why did she bring ownership into this? Stupid malamute._

"Yeah, I had owners once." He whispered, eyes watering. He stood still, and didn't move again until he heard the voices of his new team returning.


	3. Call to Action

**Chapter 3 – Call to Action**

Everyone was excited for the new day. Today the X-Generation Rovers were going to spend the entire day training and testing. Truth be told, it was probably going to suck. That did nothing to lessen the atmosphere. Sophie, the malamute, was very swiftly learning to use her ice ability and they'd not even begun training yet. Already, she could cover a floor in ice that was almost completely impossible to see until you were already slipping.

Bliss, too, was growing very quickly. As it turned out, she was able to use more than her hands to activate her power. In this way, she was ahead of Sophie. Bliss was able to send shockwaves through the air with the ability to control both how big they were, and how destructive. Sophie bit her lip in jealousy when she heard about this.

Breckenridge, the Newfoundland, was practically in love with his new strength. He was having a hard time finding anything he couldn't lift. The one downfall was that he was no longer able to handle anything delicate. He learned this while simply trying to have some water from a glass cup. The thing shattered in his grip with an audible _crunch_.

Chance had gotten his hands on a small computer, and took off almost instantly. As it turned out, he was quite the architect when it came to computer programming, hacking and handling.

Tialer was still grumpy, but she couldn't keep up such a poor attitude forever.

The elkhound sat in a corner of the common room and open-kitchen area. The sofa he sat on reeked of other dogs, other Rovers. He only recognized one of the scents, however. Muzzle, the dog in the restrainer, was commonly seen mindlessly bouncing from room to room. The elkhound honestly doubted he had any real reason.

Sophie was a nuisance. Every time she and the elkhound passed by, she'd start trying to fit a new name to him. "Moose, maybe? No, how about Elk? No, that'd be rhetorical." She would say.

_How about Bill._ He laughed to himself. _Bland, boring…it's perfect._

He shrugged, giving his ear a pointed scratch. Sophie walked into the common room; the elkhound winced. She looked at him for a moment, smiled, and walked over to Tialer and Bliss. The three of them spoke in hushed tones and occasionally giggled. Once, the three looked over at the elkhound, and laughed. He rubbed his eyes and got up. He didn't care what they were saying, but he had better things to do than be a laughing stock of their childish game. Actually…he didn't, but he wasn't going to stick around. He found Chance at one of The Master's computer systems, talking in gibberish to himself. Deciding he didn't want to hear two words of what Chance was saying, the elkhound went in search of Brek. The weight room was the most obvious place to search.

The weight room was massive, holding enough dumbbells to equip a small, albeit useless, army. Brek was at one of the machines. It was made to work calves, but Brek went the extra mile, and was lifting the entire machine with his legs.

"Hey, Brek-" the elkhound was interrupted by the loudspeaker.

"_All personnel please report to the indoor training range. Thank you."_

"-it's time to go." The elkhound said in annoyance. He had been hoping to get to know Brek better. Oh, well. Master called.

The two Rovers made their way over to the training range. Chance was already waiting for them. The three girls weren't short in following. It took only a few moments for The Master to arrive, standing on an elevated platform. Muzzle appeared on the floor with the rest of the Rovers.

"First and foremost, there will be a change in the uniforms you were issued. The traditional armor of the Road Rovers has been upgraded and certified, but not field tested. You will be the first to use the new armor, and will also be the ones to give it the pass/fail. This armor is being switched out for the blue armor that you received upon joining us." The Master adjusted his stance. "And now, we're going to see what each of you is made of. You are, one at a time, going to enter the room before you. Each challenge is different only in setup. You are to simply eliminate each target that appears before you per instructions provided. Muzzle is to go first to provide an example for the rest of you."

The door to the massive chamber opened, and Muzzle bounced up and down with a violent growl. Everyone backed away slightly.

"Breckenridge, if you'd remove the security straps, please."

Brek moved cautiously, and undid the straps, waiting for The Master to give him the go-ahead. "Let's Muzzle em'!" The Master called. Brek waited. "That's the unofficial word for 'go'," The Master explained.

"Oh," Brek let go of the straps, and Muzzle went flying. The Rovers were able to watch the action via a small series of TV screens. Muzzle jumped at the ballistics jelly dolls, tearing them to shreds in a great many ways the elkhound would have been just as happy not seeing. There were weapons set out all over the course, but Muzzle used none of them. Some of the targets were even interactive, but Muzzle showed no regard toward the stun blasts. It was over in a matter of thirty seconds.

"I think I'm going to like this guy." Tialer said in awe. Muzzle came out of the room, and hopped back into his restrainer with a great sigh of content. The elkhound shared a shiver with Sophie.

Brek was next. He entered the room, and the targets sprung up. He began using almost everything as a weapon; including things he wasn't technically supposed to use. Small boulders, large chunks of wood, anything that wasn't bolted down became a weapon. When he got to the small firearm table, he found that his finger didn't fit around the small blaster. He shrugged, and went back to throwing things.

"Not the most graceful display I've ever seen, but it wasn't too bad either." The Master said. "Bliss, you're up."

The Northern Inuit smiled as she walked by Brek. "Watch this."

Bliss stepped into the room, and waited. The targets appeared. The room was suddenly distorted by the smoke of her ability. Without even moving, she tore half of the targets apart. The first part took her about thirty seconds, as she had to use the ability on one target at a time, each one taking about two seconds. Bliss walked over to the blaster section. She took a deep breath, and began throwing punches. Doing so, rod-like shots of smoke shout out toward her targets. As it turned out, she was a terrible shot, but eventually, all of the targets were down.

"Very impressive, but I'd like to see you work on your aim." The Master said. Muzzle jumped up and down in delight.

The elkhound was next. He took a deep breath and stepped in. The targets came up. He just stood there. He didn't even know how to use his power yet. Some of the targets moved in a slow circling motion and some had heat triggered stun-blasters. Luckily, there was plenty of cover in the testing arena. Everything from large rocks to small picket fences. The elkhound decided to utilize these. He snuck around to where there was a small group of targets. Having no real weapon, he hopped from cover, and beat in the chests and heads of the jelly targets. He now had a shot at the weapons table. He snuck up, and grabbed two pistols. They were heavier than they looked. The elkhound opened fire both in front of and behind himself. He wasn't as accurate as he had hoped, but he wasn't too bad either. Stun blasts hit all around him, but he managed to evade them.

"Not too bad. I'd have liked to see you try and use your power, though." The Master said when all was said and done.

"I'm sorry, Master, but I don't know how to." The elkhound apologized.

"It's perfectly alright. You'll learn in time. Remember that your power is one of the hardest to master."

The rest of the tests flowed rather smoothly. The elkhound didn't pay great attention though. Not until Sophie's turn. She walked by, and squeezed his shoulder. "Wish me luck." She said.

Sophie stepped into the chamber. The targets came up, and the windows fogged. On the TV screens, the Rovers watched as Sophie froze the hostiles, or cut up their arms with icicles.

"Interesting." The Master noted. "Who here can tell me what she's doing in there?"

Chance smiled openly, tapping a finger on the side of his snout. "She's disabling her opponents rather than killing them."

"Exactly! I was going to bring this point up eventually, but we prefer it when you disable opponents rather than kill them. That does not mean that you are always to do so, but it helps our publicity when we don't kill everything we see."

Sophie came out of the room, and leaned on the doorway. "How'd I do?"

"Perfect," The Master replied.

Brek leaned over to the elkhound. "She wasn't asking for The Master's opinion just there." He whispered.

"Who was she talking to?" the elkhound asked, confused.

Brek slowly shook his head, and stood back up. The Master spoke before anything else could be said. "Very well done, everyone. Very well-done. Now if you'd follow Scout to the self-diagnostic station, we're going to see how well you do in simulations."

Long story short, the self-diagnostic station was a nice way of saying "how useful are you at (insert job here)." For example, Brek had a hand for machinery, as well as Tialer. They were assigned to operating any form of transport. Everything from plains to boats was theirs to control. Chance had a knack for anything mechanical, and was assigned as an engineer, but tested very well for medical treatments. In that way, he was like Sophie, who didn't know what even a single muscle was called, but she seemed to know how everything was supposed to work. Bliss was good at a number of things, but she declined any special positions, preferring to work with her power.

The rest of the day was filled with long hours of seeing what the max endurance, strength, intelligence, and over-all ability of each of the team members was. By the time night finally game, only Brek could still walk with out slumping. Then again, his endurance was off of the charts. "C'mon, now! That wasn't so bad, now; was it, team?"

The elkhound looked up at him. "Yes, it was."

"I have to agree with grumpy over there. That was pretty bad." Tialer said with a nod in the elkhound's direction. The elkhound snickered back.

The following morning, as the X-Gens were dressing and preparing for the day, The Master's voice came on the loud speaker. "_Rovers. Please join me in the debriefing room. Something urgent has come up."_ There was a moment's pause. "_Be dressed for action." _The loud speaker popped. The elkhound looked at the green armor hanging in his small closet with some regret. He sighed and got to work.

The Master was waiting for them. As soon as everyone was present, The Master indicated a large television. An image of a strange man with a series of mechanical body parts came on screen. "This," The Master said, "is General Parvo. He has been a constant source of annoyance for the Rovers both in space and on the ground from day one. Earlier today, Parvo and his forces were spotted at a top secrete military base in New Mexico. I'm sending you in to figure out what he's doing, but more importantly to put a stop to it."

"Our first mission?" Chance asked, leaning forward.

"So soon?" Bliss studied the image of Parvo. The air around her pulsed visibly with her anticipation.

"Correct. You are to deploy immediately." The Master nodded.

"No offence, but we aren't exactly even a true team yet." Tialer said. Sophie rolled her eyes. There was a long moment of silence.

The elkhound took a deep breath. "So we become one." Everyone looked at him and it took the entirety of his will to keep from slumping.

Sophie smiled, and nodded. "Okay, I'm in."

"So am I." Brek said, popping his knuckles.

"I'm in. You guys will need _some_ brains in the group." Chance added.

Bliss nodded, but said nothing. Her arm was shaking, and the air around her seemed to be filled with smoke.

Tialer was hesitant, but nodded as well.

"Very well then. Chance, I'm putting you in charge. Get down there and figure out what Parvo's up to. Hit the road, Rovers!" The excitement got to everyone. Muzzle bounced in his cart as though he was going to have a seizure, and Bliss was almost impossible to see in her cloud of pulsing.

The elkhound sat quietly, inspecting the weapon stash in the small plane that they were using. Small blasters, rifles, bazookas and …tennis balls?

He decided on one of the rifles. It was magazine fed and rather chunky looking, but it was well taken care of. The elkhound looked again at the tennis balls, and shook his head.

The plane flew for hours with Brek and Tialer at the controls. The elkhound sat with Sophie and Chance, playing cards. Bliss amused herself by writing in the air with her odd smoke. She was actually quite artistic.

"So, what do you guys think?" Breckenridge asked over his shoulder.

"About the mission? I'm kind of freaked out, honestly. It isn't like we've had loads of training for this." Sophie said as she laid out her card hand.

"No, we weren't, but that doesn't mean we aren't ready." Chance said, putting his hand face down.

The elkhound studied his cards a moment longer, and copied Chance. "Well, it isn't like we have a choice. This guy's got to go, and we're the ones to send him out of business."

Bliss waved her smoke away and walked over to the card table. Sophie smiled at her, and scooted next to the elkhound to make room for Bliss. Bliss gave Sophie an elbow and took some cards. Muzzle was in a back room to the jet, and could be heard jumping up and down.

Parvo's base was anything but modest. Large metal and concrete buildings stood hundreds of feet in the air. Cano-mutant guards paced the perimeter and human guards manned large century towers. "Likes his privacy, I'd assume." Tialer jested.

"Any plans for getting in there?" Chance asked.

"Got one." Brek said standing up. He sprinted over to the nearest building. Somehow, nobody saw him. He turned on the wall, and with a swing of his arm punched it in.

"Not what I was looking for." Chance rubbed his eyes.

"Yeah, he's kind of an idiot like that." Tialer slumped.

The collar radios popped. "_What are you guys doing? C'mon!" _Brek's voice echoed.

"Hey, do you have any idea how lucky you are? Someone could have seen!" Chance replied.

"_Oh, boo-hoo. Just get over here. Oh, wait…crap."_ From their position, the Rovers watched as hordes of cano-mutants and human soldiers came down on Brek.

"Should we help?" Sophie asked, ready to jump.

"Nah, he's fine on 'is own." Tialer said inspecting her hand.

"Actually, I agree." Chance consented as a cano-mutant went flying a full hundred yards. "Tialer, get in there and give him support. The rest of up will get in using a back door while the guards are distracted."

"Good call," Tialer said rolling her eyes. She stood up, and walked slowly over to help Brek.

"She'll be the death of us. Mark my words." The elkhound shook his head.

"Okay Rovers, let's move." Chance said, taking hold of Muzzle's cart.


	4. Parvo

**Chapter 4 - Parvo**

Parvo's base was larger than anyone had anticipated. Large towers and loads of machinery were all to be expected, but that was all there was to it. The structure was exceedingly simple in design and only had a single basement level. "They must not be done expanding yet." The elkhound suggested.

"You're probably right." Sophie agreed as she fogged over one of the security cameras.

Chance walked over to the camera, and gripped it for a moment. Of all the X-Generation Rovers, he was having the easiest time with his powers. Chance stood still for a moment, and then crushed the camera. "There," he said with a smile of success, "I've made it so that none of their cameras in this area will show us. It'll only last a short while, though. We have to move."

The mission was to learn as much as they could about this place. However, nothing seemed to stand out, give or take the dogs walking like men. Then, the Rovers stumbled upon a particular elevator. "Okay, elkhound and Sophie. Get down there and figure out what's in that basement. Bliss, you and I are going to see if we can give this Parvo guy a visit." Chance ordered. "Oh, and if anyone sees Tialer and Breckenridge, keep them with you."

The elkhound stepped into the elevator, checking the safety on his rifle. He, Chance and Tialer were the only ones who brought firearms. Sophie stepped into the elevator next to the elkhound; dropping the temperature ten degrees. She pushed the down button and the large metal doors closed. It was a mere thirty second ride, but the silence was deafening, making the ride last an hour. When the door opened, Sophie stepped out first, but stopped as though she had frozen herself. The elkhound saw why, and felt his blood drop to his toes. Carefully…very carefully, the elkhound put his rifle on his back where it attached to his armor.

The basement was gigantic and only one huge room. In the center of the room was a single super laser cannon of some kind. They were expensive, that was for sure. The Space Rover vessels had them, but that wasn't what Sophie and the elkhound had frozen over. Lining the walls and taking a good deal of the room's empty space were a variety of missiles. All over them were an equally diverse variety of symbols. Bio-weapons, SCUDs, even a small nuclear arsenal. "Where did he get all of this!?" Sophie whispered in horror.

"I don't know, but I'm suddenly not quite comfortable being here." The elkhound replied, backing to the elevator.

"I agree." Sophie said. She spun quickly, and bumped into one of the stacked missiles. They both gasped as it toppled onto the ground with a loud _clang_. They were frozen solid for a moment. Nothing happened. The elkhound slowly regained control of his muscles, but his eyes wouldn't peel away from the atomic symbol.

"Don't do that again." He said monotone.

Sophie made her way to the elevator very carefully. They pressed the up button, and it wasn't until the doors were closed that they realized they had both been holding their breath.

Elsewhere, Chance and Bliss made their way to what looked to be a control room of some kind. Chance had no trouble getting through the blast-proof door. All it took was a mechanical tweak at the control panel. The room had a series of computer stations and a single super-computer at the front of the room with a computer monitor the size of a theater screen. Bliss covered the door while Chance got to work. He activated the computer and it asked him for a password. He ran his hand over the keyboard. The computer let him in. "I love my power." He laughed to himself.

"So, what do we have here?" Bliss asked, coming to his side.

"That will take me a second. He's got a different password for every level of security…and…I'm in! Okay." Chance read the data that flashed across the screen. "Looks like Parvo-boy has his own black market going. Rifles, blasters, planes, and…" his breath caught.

Bliss couldn't make two cents of the gibberish on the screen. Just then, the main door opened. Chance ran his hand over the keyboard, closing all applications he had opened, and they both jumped for the cover of some near-by pipe work. Parvo walked in with a large group of men and women. "Looks like the redesigning guys cleaned this place up pretty good. Groomer! Let' get this place back up to speed."

Groomer, a scary looking woman wearing a red jumpsuit, nodded her head. "Yes, general." She replied in a heavy Irish accent. Bliss counted the number of people in the room. She tapped Chance on the shoulder and flashed five fingers five times, and then held up three fingers. Twenty eight people between them and the door. Luckily, the pipe work they were hiding behind was right next to the supercomputer. Chance smiled. It would be a jump, but there was a place generated by the computer that would hide him from view. He just had to get there without being seen. He looked at Bliss, but she already knew what he wanted. Concentrating hard, Bliss shot an ultra thin line of smoke across the ground. She closed her eyes, and was able to "see" what the smoke "saw." She weaved the small line across the room. A guard at the other side of the room suddenly toppled over. Everyone looked over to see what the commotion was.

The guard got back to his feet and looked down at the ground, but the smoke was already gone, and Chance was already in place. There was a deal of commotion in the room. Chance took the opportunity to insert a memory drive into the super computer. It began downloading all of the major data. A file-progress sign appeared on screen. Chance touched the side of the computer, and concentrated. The pop-up alert was closed. He hoped against hope that it had gone unnoticed.

The loud speaker in the room suddenly popped. "_General Parvo, sir._" The speaker on the other side said.

"Yes, what is it?" Parvo asked, followed by a series of coughs.

"_Sir, someone's knocked one of the missiles loose. I don't see any damage on it, but you may want to hear this._"

"What is it?"

"_There's a lock of dog fur stuck to it._"

Groomer drew her pistol. "Road Rovers!" she exclaimed.

"Thank you, soldier. Call in if you see anything. I'm sending you back up."

"_Thank you, sir. Oh. Wow, it just got really cold in here._"

Chance winced. Getting out of here wasn't going to be any walk in the park. He closed his eyes, and got to work on checking the computer for a self destruct.

A small troop of guards came into the room right then, carrying the elkhound with them. Chance bit his tongue, but realized Sophie wasn't with them. "Sir, we caught this guy running around in the armory. He had this on him." The guard handed over the rifle. The elkhound's head was bowed, and he looked limp.

Parvo gripped the elkhound's Muzzle, lifting his head. "You aint one of the regulars, are you? What's wrong, the Rover's finally got to start looking for new talent? Getting too old for their game?" Parvo asked, patting the elkhound on the head.

The elkhound did nothing, but as he was putting his head back down, he had a very distinct smile on his face. Chance looked over to Bliss, and she nodded. She had seen it too. Chance had to put this aside. The memory drive was done. He reached around the corner, and quietly pulled it out. He slipped it into his utility belt and returned his attention to the scene at hand.

Groomer was walking over to the elkhound. "Open him up if you have to, but figure out what he's doing here, and who he's with." Parvo said. The elkhound was still smiling, but it was an unsure smile now. Chance crossed his fingers. "C'mon, kid. You can teleport. Get out of there." He whispered to himself. There was a loud clanging noise, suddenly.

Pause.

_Clang_!

Pause.

_Clang_!

Everyone looked around as the metal and concrete walls shuttered visably. The guards switched their guns off of safety, and the men at the computers shifted nervously. There was a noise like someone moaning, and then a very distinct, clear, and very loud _CLA-KLANG! _The blast-proof door was heaved off of it's hinges, and smashed to the floor, cracking the metal plates, and making most of the people in the room cover their ears.

Tialer walked into the room with Brek right behind her. "Told you I could do it." He said dusting off his hands.

"Too bad you couldn't do that with the guards outside. The one almost had your tail." Tialer replied.

"In all fairness, that guy was pretty big." Brek said in a childish tone.

Tialer looked up from her rifle. "Oh. We're not alone."

Brek looked up from his muscle, and spotted Parvo and Groomer, who had taken a position in front of the computer, blasters ready. "More new Rovers?" Groomer asked, looking at the ruined door.

"Yeah. I'm a charm like that." Brek flexed. Tialer rubbed her eyes.

Chance motioned for Bliss to sneak around back. She nodded and began making her way around the piping. The elkhound had been shaken loose of his guards, and now stood with Brek and Tialer. "For the note, I never told him to do that." He told Tialer. She rolled her eyes.

"Rovers. Welcome to my new layer. Doubtless you already know what I'm doing here, so I'm afraid you can't leave." Parvo said, motioning for his guards to take positions. They did so. "I'll admit that I'm very impressed, but you're out gunned and out numbered. I advise you surrender."

One of the men at the computers shivered. "Is it cold in here?"

A white steam suddenly shot across the room, freezing the poor man's arms and legs in place. There was a panic, and some of the men got up to run, but the only exit was blocked by three Rovers, one of which had just torn a blast-door right off of its hinges. In a matter of thirty seconds, everyone was frozen. Parvo and Groomer yanked at their chilly bindings, but were rewarded with getting their hands frozen to their feet. "What just happened!?" Parvo exclaimed.

Sophie stepped out of a shadow at the side of the room, and gave a polite smile. "That would be me." She said. Bliss and Chance came out from their hiding place at that moment. All six Rovers were there. "Oh, wait. Where's Muzzle?" Chance asked. Everyone shrugged. There was a terrified yell down the hall. Three guards came running down the hall, their clothes ripped and shredded. Sophie froze them in place. Muzzle came hopping around the corer.

"How'd he manage that in his restrainer?" Chance pondered aloud.

"I honestly don't want to know." Tialer said. "No, seriously. Any of you find out…don't tell me."

Brek walked over and wheeled Muzzle over to the rest of the X-Gen. "Gang's all here." Brek said, patting Muzzle's head.

"And that means that this party is over." Chance announced. He walked over to the supercomputer, and ran his hand over the keyboard. "I found a way to set off the self destruct so that it destroys the nuclear arsenal too. Best part is that they won't go off."

"No, don't! You can't!" Parvo begged.

Chance looked up the screen. "I've disabled all cancellation sequences. We've got five minuets." Chance was suddenly blind sided. The Groomer had fought her way free of the ice. She poured out three separate shots at Sophie. Her armor absorbed all three shots, but she lost her breath from the impact. By the time the Rovers could react, Parvo was free. Without Sophie controlling it, the ice was quickly melting. Chance ran his hand over the computer, but it was too late. The self destruct was activated. The Rovers jumped into action. Every second, more guards were getting loose. Many of them ran for all they were worth, but some of them began opening fire on the Rovers. Brek utilized a desk as a baseball bat. Tialer grabbed Sophie. "I'll get her out of here!"

Bliss began throwing punches, knocking guards across the room. She was still a pretty bad shot, though. The elkhound didn't have a weapon now, but he wasn't out of the fight quite yet. He ran to the pipe work, and pried one of the thinner pipes loose. It was only about the size of a baseball bat, but it would work. The elkhound smashed the barrel of a guard's gun, then landed a kick to his chest.

Parvo watched the action, and looked at the screen. He tapped Groomer on the shoulder, and they made a break for an emergency exit. The elkhound saw this, but he was too far off. Instead, the elkhound ran full speed for Muzzle, who was foaming at the mouth in his cart. The elkhound tore at the straps, and paused. "Go Muzzle em'!" he told Muzzle. The rabid dog ripped right through the miniature battle filed, but didn't make it in time. They were already gone. Muzzle's furry was released on a group of guards instead. It was two minuets before Chance could see clearly again. He looked at the computer screen. Only two minuets and thirty seconds!

"Rovers! We have to go, NOW!" he yelled. His footing was unstable, but he managed to work up a jog. Brek looked at his broken up desk, and threw it at a wall. Most of the guards were already gone. He scooped up a small number of the rest, and ran for the door. Muzzle, strapped back into his cart, was pushed by Bliss. The elkhound looked at the super computer for a moment before dropping the rod, and taking up chase.

The building began to rumble as some of the charges began to go off. This thing was going to collapse on them! The Rovers pressed themselves as hard as they could. "We've got thirty seconds till this place goes sky-high!" Chance yelled.

"There's the end!" Bliss called back. Brek and the elkhound were both already outside. Muzzle and Bliss made it out. While Chance was only ten yards from the exit, the doorway and most of the ten yards collapsed.

"Chance! Bliss screamed. Brek and the elkhound ran for the doorway. "Get the jet ready!" Brek yelled back.

The elkhound already knew what was going to happen. Brek was going to try and dig his way in, but there was only a few seconds left. "Go back to the others! The elkhound yelled as they ran.

"What? No! I…"

"I wasn't asking!" the elkhound yelled as he sped up. Brek stumbled, and stopped. The elkhound hardly heard Brek call back "Good luck!"

The elkhound reached the outside wall, still running, and closed his eyes, hoping this would work. He jumped, as though her were diving through a hoop, and felt himself…lighten. He felt lighter…weightless. He opened his eyes, and the world had a whole new look. It was as though the entire world were being obscured by that smoke-looking stuff that Bliss gave off when she was using her power. Time almost stopped moving and he could see jets of flaming explosions move as though they were honey. The elkhound realized he was still outside. He gave the wall an experimental push, and his hand slipped right through. He held his breath, and stepped forward. The wall was thick, and he had to take several paces before he made it through. It was dark in there, and the world still moved in slow motion. He looked around for Chance. It took a moment, but he noticed Chance face up and buried to his abs under a pile of rocks and cement. The only white parts of the border collie's body were soot-black. That's why it had taken a second. In the super-slow motion world, the elkhound could see that Chance was trying to dig himself out. He had to figure out how to get out of this slow motion place and help Chance. The elkhound closed his eyes, and concentrated hard. Nothing. Down the hall, a ball of honey-like fire suddenly popped out of the corner. The elkhound would only have about seven seconds once time shifted back. He tried again and again to return to time. Nothing, nothing, nothing. "Gha!" he yelled in frustration. He was _not_ about to let his new friend die! The elkhound took a deep breath, and thought for a second. When he had dove at the wall outside, he had relaxed for a split second. He had been thinking about what would happen if he were wrong. He'd hit the wall and fall face flat to the ground. Relaxed was the wrong word, in the sense that it was a forced relaxation. The elkhound let his arms loose, and took another breath. The smoky fire seemed to evaporate, and time resumed. Chance looked up in shock. "I thought I told you to run!"

"You did!" the elkhound grabbed one of the large rocks, and threw it aside. The rising temperature reminded him that the fire wasn't moving like honey anymore. He grabbed Chance's hand, and force-relaxed. The world slowed to a near stop. He opened his eyes, and looked at Chance…who was looking around in shock.

"How did you do that?" he asked.

"I'm not completely sure." The elkhound admitted.

"Close call too." Chance pointed behind the elkhound. The elkhound turned around, and his nose touched the wall of honey-fire. He felt his nose begin to cook, and pulled back.

"Just don't let go of my hand. I think it'll send you back." Chance's grip tightened. "I should be able just to pull you out now."

The elkhound pulled at Chance, and sure enough, he came loose. He tried to help Chance up, but Chance's legs gave out before he was even up. "I think something stabbed me when the roof came down." Sure enough. Chance's hip was bleeding. "Jeeze. Talk about hip-displacia." Aside from that, Chance's legs were a catastrophe. A bone popped out near his knee and the elkhound didn't like how limply they hung.

The elkhound threw Chance over his shoulder, and walked through the wall. "Cool." Chance muttered. The elkhound suddenly lost his energy, and the world came back into time. He quickly went back into the slow world and looked behind him; the building was beginning to erupt. He half-jogged toward the team, making it about a hundred yards at a time. "You know, The Master did say that your telekinesis was short range." Chance said. "Maybe that's why you can only do a hundred yards at a time?"

"Or it's on a timed basis. Either way, that's good enough for me. I can't think of a single wall that's a hundred yards thick."

Chance laughed, which was cut short from the pain in his side and legs.


	5. They Were Rovers

**Chapter 5 – They Were Rovers**

Chance was going to live, but he was in critical condition. During the long ride back, Sophie did the best she could to keep him comfortable and to treat his wounds. The elkhound had managed to get Chance into the Sky Rover before he collapsed from exhaustion. His limbs shook uncontrollably, and his head throbbed. Once Chance was taken care of, Sophie came over to the elkhound, who had managed to fall asleep. She reached out, and put a hand on his shaking arm. The elkhound began making growling noises and rocking back and forth. Sophie put a hand on his head. A white steam surrounded the elkhound as Sophie attempted to bring the elkhound's body temperature down.

She had used her ice ability to numb Chance's pain as well, but ice can't heal nightmares. She was able to stop the shaking, however. "It must have something to do with his power." Bliss said as she came to stand next to Sophie.

"I don't know either way, but he's burning up! I have to chill him every five minuets or he begins to shake." She said, placing a hand on his shoulder.

"Looks like he's having nightmares."

"I think he is, but there's nothing I can do about that." Sophie left the elkhound's side, and walked over to Chance. "Border Collie's doing a lot worse though."

"He _looks_ a lot worse." Bliss admitted, looking at Chance's legs. Sophie had managed to get his bones back in place once he was numb, but they were still poorly formed.

Sophie spoke in a very hushed voice, "I honestly don't know if he'll ever walk again. All of his injuries will heal right-and-proper, but he took some damage to his spine. I can't tell for sure, but he may well be dead from the hips down."

Bliss shook her head slowly. "He's not going to like that."

"I'd imagine not." Sophie said as she re-numbed the damaged muscles and bones. Bliss walked back with Sophie to the elkhound. His eyes were wide open, and slightly watered. Sophie felt his forehead. He was still burning up. The elkhound looked around, as though disorientated for a moment. He took a slow breath and pushed himself into a sitting position. "You feeling okay?"

The elkhound was distant to Sophie's question for a moment. "I'm fine now." He said. "Is it hot in here?"

"No, it's just you. Sophie's been doing her best, but your body is acting strangely." Bliss said.

The elkhound nodded. Brek stepped into the backroom. "We've only got about an hour left in the flight. I'm sorry to bother you with him, but Muzzle keeps bumping into Tialer and me. If someone could get him off of our hands, please?" Brek looked at the elkhound, and smiled. "That was some pretty impressive work out there today."

"Thank you." The elkhound said, returning the smile.

Brek stepped out and Sophie stood up. "I guess I may as well grab Muzzle before he triggers Tialer's temper." Bliss laughed, and the elkhound decided it was best not to say anything. He stood up on wobbly feet, and experimentally tried taking a few steps. His balance was a tad off, but other than his fever, he felt fine.

Back at base, Professor Hubort, Rover Head Quarter's lone attending medical expert, was waiting for Chance. Sophie informed Hubort about everything that had happened to Chance and they took him to the medical room via stretcher. The elkhound had cooled off during the ride, as well as regained his balance. "It's most likely due to the extreme bounds of your power." Hubort explained. "You actually skipped several _basic_ abilities with your power. It would be like jumping into the deep end of a pool while you were still learning how to doggie paddle. Very dangerous."

"I didn't mean to, if that's what you're implying. I didn't see that we had a choice, though." The elkhound said.

"Oh, I don't blame you, or criticize you for that matter. I'm actually quite happy you did, or Chance wouldn't be here with us now. I'm simply saying that you don't use your ability until you know the basics, or you may just wind up in a place you don't want to be in." Hubort said as he put the finishing touches on Chance's leg cast.

"What about Chance? Will he be alright?"

"Very hard to say. Sophie and I did our best, but her assessment of his condition is much the same as mine. We may need a wheelchair for him. Rather it will be permanent or not is hard to say."

The elkhound nodded, understandingly.

The Master called the team together. Muzzle was at his side when the Rovers gathered. "Very well done today. Minus Chance's apparent condition, that was good for a first time around."

"What? We almost _lost_ Chance? Who's to say we _won't_ lose him?" Tialer exclaimed. The Master frowned. "I'd say that that was the worst idea we could have made as a team! We haven't even had proper training yet, and you sent us against a _nuclear_ arsenal!"

"Yes. I'd like to remind you, however, that we did not know Parvo's intentions. It could well have been illegal bird smuggling. Did the mission come out perfectly? No. Nobody's saying otherwise either." The Master replied. "Per your pointing it out, I'm postponing all team action for the X-Generation until both you as a team and I as your superior think that you can work as an efficient and effective team."

Tialer's ears drooped, but she nodded. Nobody liked the idea of training, but the thought of a wheelchair was worse.

Training began early the next day. Rifle ranges, obstacle courses, work outs, then lunch. Repeat, except that there was only one lunch. The elkhound passed the time by helping Sophie and Bliss find him a name. Grant it, it wasn't fun, per say, but it passed the time.

They went over every generic dog name in the book before they began getting creative. Even at the end of the day, they had found nothing. For the most part, this was because they were too tired to try. Everyone made their way to the common room, where they slumped down in the sofas and the armchairs. Brek came in with a little hop in his step. "Now _that_ was a hard day!" he said as he took one of the bar stools. Everyone looked at him. "What?"

They had undergone weeks of intense training. The exercises eventually turned from working out, to working as a team. They had to solve puzzles, use their powers as a combined force, and then there were more obstacle courses, both with and without talking. It was almost two months of the intense work before The Master began to let up on the intensity of the exertion. The X-Gen was even put into several small-time simulations. At the end of every day, they always retired to the common room, where they had food and drinks waiting for them.

After one particular day, while the team actually had a small amount of energy left, the elkhound noticed something. There was a coffee table in the room and on it were small hand-held diagnostic screens. Needless to say, the coffee table had always been there, but the diagnostic screens were new. The elkhound sniffed one of them. "These are The Masters." He said. "Muzzle's used them quite a bit too." He touched the screen and it flashed the image of a Rover. "They're operative diagnostics." The elkhound read up on the basic personal data. "Anyone know of a 'Blitz"?" he asked.

Everyone shook their heads. Sophie and Bliss both grabbed one, and handed the remaining two off to Tialer and Brek. "I've got a 'Hunter'." Bliss said.

"Colleen." Sophie scratched at her ear.

"Exile." Tialer said, kicking her legs over the side of the armchair.

"Shag? That's an odd name." Brek tapped at his screen.

The elkhound tapped on the "open file" button, and began reading. Included in the file were dates, missions, major accomplishments and abilities. Anything you wanted to know about the operative. "They were all one team." The Elkhound observed.

"Road Rovers, specifically. Much like the Space Rovers." Bliss said.

"Or the X-Generation Rovers." Tialer added. Everyone paused, and looked at her. "I never said we weren't a team. We're just not a good one yet." She said waving off the stares.

"Their team file is huge!" Sophie said in awe. "They've had a mission almost every other day of their term!"

"Look here. They specialized win dealing with Parvo." Brek said.

"Not much of a specialty." Tialer noted.

The elkhound was fascinated. He _had_ to meat these Rovers. Their files actually required _back-up_ memory! He took his eyes away for a moment to think, and spotted another file on the coffee table. Curious, he reached out and took it up. "Got another one." He said. Everyone leaned in. The elkhound opened the file, and stopped. "Muzzle."

They were quiet for a moment. Sophie took the pad, and sniffed at it. "Only The Master's scent here. Muzzle hasn't looked at his own file, then."

"Why were these left out?" Bliss wandered aloud.

"Because I left them out." The Master said from his balcony. Everyone jumped up and stood at attention. Some tails hid between legs, and ears drooped in guilt. "No, no. None of that. I'm actually glad you found them. It honestly saved me the heartache of eventually telling you about the Road Rovers. They were Muzzle's original team." The Master made use of a pad next to him. A small projection screen below him brought up a team picture. It was of the Road Rovers. They were all smiling, and Muzzle was in the middle of them. "Now I'm not going to tell you that they were a perfect team, or even that sensible, but they were the original Rovers. Also needless to say, the Rover program has expanded greatly since then, even before you joined us. The problem is that the world today just needs us that badly. We have many luxuries that modern governments don't have. For example, we're restricted only by our own laws and rules to a great degree."

"So what about the Road Rovers?" Tialer asked curiously.

"I'm getting to that. The Road Rovers were the single most successful Rover team created to date. Their entire service files couldn't even fit on all six of those hand-helds. The Road Rovers were on a routine mission not even a full seven months ago when they vanished into thin air. If you've read their files, you'd know just as well as I do, that such a team wouldn't _just_ disappear. According to quarantine plans and regulations, a new team was assembled until they could be found. The X-Generation. You. Before any of you go barking off, that is not to say that you are a momentary team. This does, however, mean that you will be the ones to take up the investigation of the Rovers' disappearance."

The elkhound looked down at Blitz's diagnostic. "In that case, sir, I ask permission to review the full extent of the Road Rovers' file, sir."

"Permission granted. I'll send the papers with Chance, who according to Hubort is granted permission to leave the hospital now. He'll be in shortly." The Master said.

"Thank you, sir." Sophie gave a brisk salute. The Master smiled and left.

Everyone was delighted to see Chance. The casts were off, and his legs were in proper shape now, but he was still confined to a wheelchair. "The trouble is that I can't decide rather to chase the wheel of my chair or my own tail." He said with a laugh. It helped lighten the mood. The Border collie's smile also eased the awkward tension of the moment. "Oh, The Master said that your guys requested this stuff." Chance said, pulling out a large side-bag. In it were a large number of items. Papers, files, and a load of memory drives. It was all put in a chronological order.

The X-generation spent hours every day reading the mission reports. Chance worked at a computer to highlight the major aspects of the Rovers' missions and the important details of each individual Rover. "This Shag guy is kind of the odd-ball in this group. He's got a file only slightly larger than ours, but he's been there from the beginning." Chance said. "He's easily agitated when it comes to food, apparently."

"I like the sound of this Hunter guy." The elkhound said. It was almost five months of being a team, and the elkhound still didn't have a name. This was a point of irritation for Sophie. "He was their leader, and apparently he was pretty good at it." Chance looked back at the elkhound

"You know," Sophie said. "I'm actually wondering if we're looking up the wrong stuff right now."

"What are you saying?" Tialer asked.

"Well, The Master said that it was our job to find them anyway, so maybe we should be working on that." Sophie said. Bliss nodded with a smile.

"No 'e didn't, mate. He only said it was our job to investigate their disappearance." Tialer said as she tapped on her computer's screen.

Brek chuckled in his deep voice. "You're sounding a little more Australian every day, _mate_."

Tialer's eyes flashed a warning glance at Brek, and Brek made as though tipping a hat. Chance turned his wheelchair, and looked over at the group. "Actually, I agree with Sophie. Even if it wasn't our job, I say we owe it to the Rovers to at least give it an honest shot."

The elkhound nodded. "I'm in. Chance, begin searching The Master's archives for any info on who they were captured by. Bliss and Sophie, try finding out more about any personal grudges against them; that could help us understand why they were captured. I'd look mostly into General Parvo's mission files. Brek, you come with me. I want to follow their last known tracks and see if we can't scratch something up. Tialer…let's have you assist Chance. Brek and I will take a long-distance radio and we'll be wired straight to Tialer and Chance. If anyone finds something, share it with the class." The elkhound set down the data pad he had been holding, and looked up. Everyone was looking at him.

"Not bad, kid." Chance said with an approving nod.

It took Chance only a second to find the last known path of the Rovers. They'd been on their way to Antarctica from a fraud mission in Nigeria.

"My best guess would be just to jump to Antarctica. We know for a fact that they left the African continent. It's the only place that wasn't searched in great detail. The Master had a sonar scan of the entire ocean between Africa and Antarctica." Chance tapped at his computer in frustration. "Damn things are too slow." He muttered.

The flight was long, yet anything-but-dull. The elkhound watched the radar and used a spy-lens to look for any signs of a crash. There were none. Over seas, Brek occasionally dropped a disposable sonar device. Nothing was showing up on the sea floor either. "I guess it's safe to assume that the search and rescue parties would have found something already if they were down there."

"_You're correct, but I'd like to remind you that a jet can glide for thousands of miles. If the Road Rovers had a fuel problem and went down, we'd be at this for years._" Chance pointed out.

"Since when are you a pessimist?" the elkhound asked.

"Since you partnered him up with Tialer," Brek said with a chuckle.

"_I'd like to remind you that I have a head set._" Tialer said. Brek winced.

"Sophie and Bliss find anything yet?" the elkhound asked.

There was a pause as Tialer relayed the question. "_They've got nothing so far. Looks like they've kept up with the rest of us."_

"_If I come out of this with a smile on my face, I'll give you my rations for a week." _Chance said to the elkhound. The elkhound laughed. "_Oh, and Sophie told me to ask you what you think about the name 'Hiro'?"_

"It sounds too much like 'Hero'. Good thought though."

Antarctica was cold. Even with their thick fur, the two Rovers were chilled. They were quite thankful for their armor's temperature adaptation. It made the thick and clumsy winter coats in the back of the jet unnecessary, though they required breathing masks. It helped keep their faces warm, and not to mention…they looked kinda cool. Brek and the elkhound both noticed the construction sight in a moment's time. They reported their find and its exact location before investigating. The building was an empty find, however. The construction had been long abandoned, and never even finished. They chose to investigate none-the-less. The elkhound and Brek found no way to the two upper levels, so assumed just as well not to bother.

"'Ey, look at this!" Brek called.

"What?" the elkhound walked over, and looked down at an oddly shaped snowdrift. Brek kicked it a little, revealing a badly cut-up net, frozen solid.

"I can honestly say I doubt that this was for the construction. Look at the cut marks. Cleanly cut, at that." Brek ran his gloved hand over the cut edges of the rope net.

"Construction-related damage would have made that a-heck-of-a-lot nastier." The elkhound agreed. He looked around, and spotted another frozen item. A blaster, hidden from the snow in a small corner of a metal I-beam. "Not my choice of welding equipment." He said as he picked it up.

While Brek reported the finds, the elkhound continued looking around. A nose was useless where there was so much wind and the air was so dry. He paced slowly, carefully kicking each snow drift, and turning over every pile of materials. That was when he spotted it. "Brek. We've got active motion detectors!" he called on his short range COM.

"Yeah, I've got one here too." Brek replied. "I think it's time to go."

"I agree." The elkhound turned to leave and spotted a nail, jutting out of a piece of plywood. On it was a long strip of green cloth. He yanked it off, making sure that it wasn't attached to anything else, and caught up to Brek. He showed Brek his find.

"We've got samples of each Rover's scent. Let's see if it matches up." Brek said, pocketing the blaster they had found. Once they were back in the jet, they had to wait a moment for the ice to defrost off of the cloth. This was tricky, because they had to make it so that the melting water didn't take the scent off. A screen showed the rest of the team on the other side. Everyone waited patiently. The elkhound sniffed at the cloth.

"The scent is still here." He reported. He sniffed it again, and held the scent in for a moment. Next, he began sniffing the personal items of the Rovers, one at a time. It wasn't Hunter, Exile or Shag. The elkhound stopped suddenly. He sniffed the ripped cloth, and then Colleen's comb. "We've got something here." He handed off the two items to Brek. Brek's nose was inherently weaker than the elkhounds, but Newfoundlands still had noses to admire.

"_Well?_" Chance asked over the radio.

"We've got her." Brek said putting the items down. He pulled a twisted coil of the cleanly-sliced rope out of his pocket. "And my money says that this will match Blitz's scent." It did.

"So, we have solid evidence that the Rovers made it all the way out here. Two scents, and the blaster matched the ID tags of Rover standard-issue. So, what now?" the elkhound asked.

"_I'm coming down there. My nose works in the cold, so maybe we can figure out where they went next?"_ Sophie said.

"_Alright, then. I'm sending Bliss and Tialer with you. I'll stay at the computer for technical support. I advise you take the Jet Rover. It's new, but it's going to cut a lot of travel time out."_ Chance said. There was a pause. The elkhound looked up at the video screen, where Muzzle and The Master had appeared. Chance was updating them. Muzzle was relatively still for a moment, and then began jumping and foaming. The Master was saying something, then gave a grand smile. "_He says two things._" Chance radioed. "_First, we need to tell him about things like this from now on. Second, he's very proud of us. Oh, and foamy here is coming too."_ Chance pointed to Muzzle with a thumb.

Breckenridge and the elkhound had several hours to wait. This meant two things. Firstly, they were on a giant ice field with no cover and were visible for hundreds of miles. Secondly, (and the far worse when push came to shove) they had nothing to do for the next several hours. Brek sat back in his chair, and twittled his thumbs. The elkhound kicked his legs back, and accidentally slipped. He caught himself, but a piece of paper fell out of his armor's internal breast pocket. Brek looked at the yellowed paper, and picked it up carefully. "What's this?" he asked. The elkhound looked at it, and jumped. He felt his pocket, and noticed it had fallen out.

"Uh, nothing. It's nothing. Lemme see it." He reached for the paper, but Brek pulled back.

"Then I'd like to see." Brek carefully unfolded the paper and looked blankly at two separate forms. The first was a picture, and the second was a kennel adoption form. He looked at the picture of the dog on the kennel form. "Looks like you." Brek paused a moment. "Oh…I'm sorry." He handed the picture and the form back.

The elkhound carefully folded the two back together. "Folding those papers was a lot harder back when I didn't have thumbs, you know." He said, inspecting the delicate folds.

"So, you have a family? I thought you said you didn't?"

"I don't. They're…not the dog type." He tapped the two papers on his knee. "I do have a name, you know."

Brek looked over, shocked, but not paralyzed by the statement. "Do you have any idea how poorly Sophie is going to react to this?" Brek gave a half-effort smile. "Well, what is it?"

"Argo." The elkhound sat up a little straighter. "I was a birthday gift to a little girl. It was great at first, but eventually, the girl got tired of taking care of me. The parents didn't have the time, and I was left alone outside. I lived outside by myself, wishing and praying that someone would come outside to take care of me. Play with me. After months of limited contact from my owners, I gave up. I ran away, heartbroken. It's every puppy's dream to have a loving and caring family."

"I know. I've actually been wondering lately how my old family was doing." Brek rubbed his chin.

"Hey, Brek." Argo leaned forward. "I don't want the others to know." Brek looked at Argo, and nodded.

"Alright."


	6. Colleen and Exile

**Chapter 6 – Colleen and Exile**

Hunter stretched his sore arms. He'd lost count of how many days he'd been here, but in all honesty, it wasn't too bad. There was a sofa, food, water, and he even had Colleen and Exile both with him. Blitz and Shag were both being held in separate parts of the building. Colleen was still asleep and Exile was pacing. That's all he did, all day. Hunter had asked him why he was doing that at some lost point-in-time. All Exile responded with was, "If I don't, I go crazy in tiny place, comrade Hunter!" Hunter had clasped Exile's shoulder.

"We'll get out of here in no time. Just take it easy." Hunter had replied. Since then, Exile's pacing had made a clear indent in the floor. Colleen passed the time practicing forms, while Hunter passed it in whatever way seemed best at the moment.

He had had a lot of time to think. There was a heater in the room, so he guessed that he was still in Antarctica. Other than that, Hunter knew about as much as the next captive. It was on this particular day, however, that he felt a renewed sense of hope, not that he had ever lost hope. As a masked guard was bringing in their food, Hunter had heard two men talking outside. "Our motion detectors went off yesterday. Boss sent a group of guys out there, but they couldn't find anything." One said.

"Must 'ave been the snow drifts shifting that spooked the alarms again. If I had a nickel for every time that happened, I'd 'ave my own base by now."

"Boss thought the same, 'till one of the boys reported a dog print."

Hunter smiled to himself. He knew The Master would find them. Who had he sent though? As far as Hunter recalled, all of the other Rover operatives were tied up. They must have made time. Exile and Colleen both heard the men talking as well. They all shared a glance, but went back to what they were doing, only now they did it with new energy.

The elkhound, Argo, watched as the Jet Rover made a smooth landing right next to the Sky Rover. Tialer and Bliss both came out wearing thick coats. The elkhound and Breckenridge had adorned their coats as well. The heating insulation on the new armor only lasted a short while, as it turned out. Sophie, on the other hand, was wearing the most basic of field clothing. The green shirt and black pants that were standard issue with black gloves and medium boots. Her ice powers had something to do with it. Bliss passed out eye wear, which had a built-in radio, and a small screen capable of broadcasting everything from maps to live action from the other Rovers.

Brek flicked through the various screen settings. "Okay…these are _cool_." He said.

"_Everyone on Sophie. She's the best-off out there. If you guys find anything, I want constant communication._" Chance said from back at Rover HQ. Sophie began sniffing at the snow and in the air. All of the water and ice didn't even begin to hinder her nose. She sniffed for only about ten minuets before she had an idea of what happened.

"It was an ambush. Whoever was here, knew full well that the Rovers were coming. There's too many scents to count here, but they all go that way." She pointed into the white blanket of snow. "They took vehicles, but they were short-range. Hundred miles at the most."

"That's long range on foot." Tialer said simply.

Sophie was already following the scent. Tialer shrugged and began walking after her.

They walked on for several miles, though this did little to their energy. If nothing else, this was easier than the last several weeks of intense training. Sophie stopped a small number of times to inspect a scent, but usually gave a disgusted look and moved on. One time, however, she stopped and smiled. "Chance, send me any satellite images of the spot we're standing in taken within the past years." The sound of typing came over the earpieces, and a moment later, the images came through.

"_I don't see much going on, but that could well mean that if you're standing on something that it was pre-space age._" Chance said. "_Oh, wait here!_" an image came on the eye pieces. There was a line of small shadows leading from the building Brek and the elkhound had found. The satellite had taken several other small imaged before moving on. The second was them traveling the same path the Rovers had just been following, and the third was of them vanishing into thin air.

"When were these taken?" Bliss asked.

"_about seven months ago._" Chance replied.

"Any possibility that you can show us where they were vanishing?" Tialer asked, looking at the miles and miles of flat land.

"_I'll send a way-point to your eyepieces. It should be showing up in a few seconds._" Chance replied. The eye pieces all went black, and then showed the view in real time with a little square in the distance. Under it was the distance in meters. A little over three football fields. The walk there was easy enough. It was all flat and the wind was to the Rovers' backs. They reached the way-point, and it blinked out, returning to the various screens that each individual had been in. the elkhound checked the GPS.

"Says on the GPS that we haven't budged?" the elkhound noticed.

"_Whoever we're dealing with somehow managed to make a small section of the world vanish, in a manner of speaking._" Chance noted.

"Nobody ever comes down here, anyway." Tialer added changing from the GPS to the live-scene screen.

Sophie sniffed around. "There's tracks all over here, some are even visible to the naked eye. There's a switch here somewhere, but I can't find it."

"_Any suggestions?_" Chance asked.

"Got one." Bliss said. "Stand back." Her body was surrounded by the waves of air the team had come to know as "smoke," and it began to spin like a tornado. There was no wind generated by it, but on the inside, the snow went flying in every direction. It stopped abruptly, falling to the side. "That snow there," Bliss pointed to an icy-looking snow patch the size of a car, "is fake."

There was a tiny flashing control panel on a small metal box next to the fake snow mound. "_Hook me up_" Chance said.

Tialer walked over, and attached an odd looking device to the control panel. "_This will take a second_." Chance said past the sound of typing. "_Okay, you're in._"

The fake snow mound began lifting up into the air, revealing first an elevator, and then a small garage to the side in which there were a small number of arctic vehicles and snow mobiles. The Rovers crammed into the elevator, and Brek hit the down button. Once the doors opened, Tialer tossed another odd looking device into the empty hall.

"It's hacking into any remote computer system in this place." She explained. "Chance built it himself."

"Cool." Brek said. The Rovers spread out, and knelt down, waiting for Chance.

"_Okay. The security on their computer system is tight, but you'll have an easy go at it. The only guards on duty are going to be at the holding cells. This place is a three story structure, but it's about the size of a college. The only holding cells that I see are…hold on…all the way down the hall you're currently in. You hit the far wall, and take an immediate left. There will be three elevators. Take the third one; each elevator does something very different. If you get on the wrong one, you wind up either in the boiler room, or in the hanger. I can't tell you what to expect in either. The holding cells will have no less than two guards each, giving you a total of about……twelve guards. I can't tell you where the Rovers will be, or how tight the cell's security will be as far as locks and doors go. That's all I can give you for now._" Chance typed at the keyboard.

"Alright. Let's get our guys out of the holding cells first, then let's see if we can blow this place off of the map." Tialer said.

"We don't even know what their captors want." Sophie argued.

"_They took Rovers hostage. They're hostile._" Chance said.

"Debate settled." Sophie muttered.

The Rovers made their way down the hall, and bumped into two guards at the turn. Tialer smacked one over the back of the head, and Brek knocked the breath out of the other. No alarm ever had the chance to be raised. They hid the guards behind a desk after knocking the desk-worker out, and continued down the hall. They didn't have any trouble until they got to the holding cells. As expected, there were about twelve guards. They had failed to consider that they'd be armed with shot guns and CQB gear. Sophie, thinking fast, managed to freeze half a dozen. The elkhound tightened his shoulders, and time froze. He ran, and jumped at two of the other guards. Time cam back into play just as he was landing the kicks. Both guards slammed against the wall. The elkhound threw a sideways kick to knock out a third. Brek picked up Tialer and threw her at one guard (which was a practiced move). Bliss shot off a pulse of air, finishing off the deal. Muzzle pouted and gave a small whine.

"You'll get your turn." Brek said patting the rottwieler on the head.

"Hello? Who's there?" a female voice asked.

"Breckenridge, you're up." The elkhound said. He singled out the holding cell. "This door needs to go."

Brek laughed, walking over to the door. There were no good hand holds, so Brek made them by punching holes in the wall. The door made a crunching noise as it came loose. Bliss used her smoke to push the dust to the ground.

A husky stepped cautiously out, and smiled. "_Exile, I'd presume?_" Chance asked over the radio. The question came through on a small loud speaker on Brek's armor.

"You are Rovers?" Exile asked in a thick Russian accent. He jumped up and down with delight. "Gha! Thank you comrades! Am so _tired_ of cramped room! I wore hole in floor!"

A collie stepped out after him. "Blimey! It's good to see the lot o' you!" she said.

"_Hello Colleen._" Chance said over the radio. "_Where are the others? According to my records, we still need to see Hunter, Blitz, and Shag."_

Colleen looked around before realizing she was hearing a radio. "Blister and Shag were taken a while ago. They took Huntie just this morning. I 'aven't the slightest idea where." She said. She looked over at Brek, and then to Muzzle, who was jumping in delight. "Now 'ere's a familiar face!" she said. Colleen and Exile ran over and gave Muzzle a loving hug.

"Have not seen crazy comrade in many weeks! We are long due for reunion, no?" Exile said, patting Muzzle on the head. Muzzle made a series of barking and growling noises. Exile then turned to his rescuers. "You make me very happy dog! I give you big hug, okay?" Exile scooped up Bliss and Sophie, and hugged them until their legs kicked in the air and their spines made uncomfortable popping noises.

"Okay, you're happy. Put me down." Bliss said breathlessly.

"Sorry comrade." Exile said releasing the two. "I do not even know your names."

"_Reunion and introductions later. A silent alarm has been tripped_." Chance informed the group.

"Alright, Rovers. We're out of here." Tialer said.

"Check the other cells, just in case?" Brek suggested.

"Good call." The elkhound stopped time, and walked through one of the walls. Nothing. Brek ripped another door off. Nothing. Sophie froze several doors until they were brittle, and Bliss smashed them like glass with a pulse of air. Nothing in any of the cells.

"Alright, let's head out. Chance, exit route, please." Brek said into the radio. Tialer passed out a radio to Colleen and Exile.

"_Looks like your not getting out the same way you came in. The silent alarm triggered more blast-proof doors than you have time to punch through. Give me a moment…_" there was a short pause. "_Okay. Head out to the hanger. It's your only way out of there. Everything else is on full alert. Armed guards and barricades. You'll have guards in the hanger, but not as many for some reason. Also, if you have the time, it would only take one charge to send that boiler room into chaos. Doesn't look like they had ever expected company there, so nothing is re-enforced._"

Tialer reached into her utility belt, and pulled out a chunk of C4, wrapped in plastic and strapped to a timer. "Will this do?"

"_Perfectly._"

"I'll set it for ten minutes. Five minutes doesn't seem to be the charm," she said.

"_Still a little early to joke about that._" Chance replied.

"Sorry." Tialer's ears drooped a bit.

"Alright. Bliss, Tialer and I will take out the boiler room. The rest of you get to that hanger." The elkhound said.

"Sounds good to me…uh…what's your name?" Colleen asked.

The elkhound's ears drooped. "Don't have one." Brek stared at the elkhound for a long moment, and slowly shook his head. The elkhound turned and began walking toward the boiler room. Bliss put a hand on Colleen's shoulder, and speed-walked to catch up with Tialer and the elkhound. The boiler room had four armed guards, thanks to the alarm. Bliss pulsed three of them, and Tialer had the fourth down before the elkhound could do anything. Tialer found a hidden spot by one of the boilers and set the charge. "Ten minutes" Bliss said into the radio.

"_Copy that._" Brek replied in a whisper.

The three began making their way out, but a radio call from Chance stopped them in their tracks. "_Heads up, gang. Looks like they've got something here! I can't tell for sure, but it looks like some kind of…I have no idea, but it's big. Takes up a room the size of a stadium._"

"Who's closest to it?" Tialer asked, folding her arms.

"_Uh…you three are. It's actually a few rooms away from you. There should be a large metal door at the far end of the room, and…_"

"…not that I want to be rude, but we have a time bomb about ten feet away from us." Tialer barked.

"_Alright, cool it._" Colleen said. "_Chance, is it? Just get them to that room. If it's important, great, if not, great. We can figure out what to do then, but be fast about it. This base isn't empty, and someone's going to see us if we don't hurry._"

Chance sent through a series of way-points to the eye pieces, and the three got to work. The doors were easy to pass with the elkhound's power. Bliss seemed to take delight in the experience, and Tialer dismissed the entire thing. A power was a power to her. The room looked bigger than they were told to expect.

"Looks like our friends have been trying to make themselves a transdogmafier." The elkhound said. He pulled out a small memory drive and plugged it up, giving Chance a direct uplink to the small-stadium machine.

"_Looks like you're right. These guys are trying to make a transdogmfier somewhere between The Master's and Parvo's. Hard to tell, but they want the brute force of Parvo's mutants, but the intellect of The Master's sapiens. There's more to it, but long story short, blow it up._" Chance said.

Chance fed Tialer tactical placement data via eyepiece. She dialed in the times on a series of small charges. "Let's get out of here." She said.

"_Hanger secured. Thank Muzzle later._" Sophie called over the radio.

The elkhound got to the hanger in a little under no time at all. Once the group was together, they decided on snowmobiles. These would be enough to get them back to their own aircraft. The Sky and Jet Rovers were more than enough to get them home. Once they were outside, the Rovers stopped briefly to watch the arctic landscape light up with the fires of the boiler room. A few seconds later, there was a second explosion as the transdogmafier erupted.

"_Target destroyed._" Chance reported. "_And you'll all love this. While you kids were busy playing around in there, I was doing a little digging. I found two things. First and foremost, these guys kept their shipping records easily accessible; I know where the other Rovers are. Secondly, to satisfy your thirst for understanding, I know why they wanted the Rovers. They wanted a small number of samples of genetically stable cano-sapiens. I don't yet know why they did this the difficult way, i.e. kidnapping. Whoever's running this show is keeping everything under loose security, and tight detail. What do you guys say?_"

"We're done for today. Everyone's tired, and Colleen and Exile look a little sickly. Besides that, The Master could use a lift." The elkhound said. Chance agreed.

"Are looking much like a 'Buddy' to me." Exile said, rubbing his chin.

The elkhound rubbed his ear. "We'll see." The Rovers headed for the jets, unaware that they were being watched, unable to know that they now had a satellite actively tracking them.


	7. Farewell

**Chapter 7 – Farewell**

The elkhound woke up early the next day. His head was burning a bit, but not as bad as it had done when he used his power for the first time. Over the past few months, many of his hours of training had been spent learning all he could about his power. Short range telekinesis came in two forms. The first was literally teleporting and the second was moving at unusually fast speeds. There was more to it, but the second part of the ability was commonly known and described as "ghosting."

Hubort had a good look at the rescued Rovers upon their return. They were a tad malnourished, but were normal otherwise. Chance was currently trying to find where the as-of-yet unidentified enemy had shipped the other Rovers.

"From the looks of it, these guys feared someone would break into their system, but wanted it to happen. They had over a hundred different shipments all titled 'RRver'. Not exactly subtle. Not a single one of the packages goes to the same place. Honestly, I should still be able to find the other Rovers; it may just take a while." He said, scooting his wheel chair over so he could reach a third keyboard.

Chance had converted his personal room into a full-out mission-control room. He had dozens of computers, along with a small arsenal of loose memory drives, data drives, and extra keyboards and things the elkhound had never seen before. Chance had also spent some time in Hubort's labs, creating items that he distributed to the X-Gen, such as wire taps and modified radios that had video uplinks, such as they had used in Antarctica. Chance was already awake and working when the elkhound walked by. "Morning." The elkhound said.

"Wha…come again?" Chance shook his head.

"Good. Morning."

Chance looked at his clock. "Great. Worked right through the night." He rubbed his eyes. "I'm going to get ten minuets of sleep before the others wake up. If I'm not up by then, don't wake me until I'm needed." Chance closed his sliding door.

The elkhound walked into the common room and grabbed a seat in one of the armchairs. He pulled a small water-proofed "wallet" out of his pocket, and flipped it open. Inside was the picture of a family. There was only one child, but both parents were smiling. It wasn't a posed picture. They were playing. The little girl was throwing a ball and the mother and father were laughing. They were in a green field with a city line in the background. The little girl was so happy, dressed for a party with party gifts and friends all around. They were all playing. Playing…with a puppy.

"What's that?" Sophie asked as she stepped into the room. The elkhound was shocked, but calmly folded the picture back up, not wanting to damage the portrait any more.

"Just a…a bad memory." He replied.

"Why hold on to it then?" she asked, looking around in the fridge.

"It's a lesson. Symbolic, too, if you want to be honest."

"I do. Oh, morning Tialer."

Tialer walked into the room, her fur sticking out in every direction. The elkhound turned and looked another way. Tialer stopped, and gave a lazy effort at swatting the army of cowlicks away. She yawned as she plopped down on one of the sofas. "What's for breakfast?" she asked in a slightly Australian accent. She was the only one on the team who seemed to have any accent at all.

"What ever you want." Sophie said. "Cereal, eggs, ham…dog food, even."

Tialer made a gagging noise.

Brek woke up next. He came into the room and yawned loud enough to hurt one's ears. "Good morning. How'd we sleep?" Tialer glared at him. "Woh. Wake up on the wrong side of the bed?" Tialer rolled her back to him. "Do you _ever_ wake up on the right side?" he asked. Tialer moaned.

Bliss came into the room next, Colleen at her side. Everyone stood up when they entered. Nobody had expected either of the rescued Rovers to be up for several hours. "Where's Exile?" Colleen asked upon entering.

"Not up yet. Why are you?" Brek asked politely.

"Are you kiddin'? I just about spent the last four months sleepin!" Colleen said in her British accent.

Exile walked in, as if on queue. "Good morningski my Rover comrades!" he said.

The elkhound sat up a bit straighter, listening as everyone described their night's sleep. Over all, with Tialer as the one exception, everyone seemed to have had a good night.

"Good morning, Rovers." The Master said from his banister. "It is very good to see you again Colleen and Exile. You all may or may not be aware of it, but Chance has been working sleeplessly to locate the remaining Road Rovers. He informed me via COM just a few moments ago that he has located a likely target, but he requests not to be disturbed. As far as we can tell at this point in time, the Rovers have all been shipped to different locations. I can't tell you more at this point in time. Good luck Rovers."

Tialer looked at her fur. "Not going out like this." She said. Tialer got up, and walked toward the shower room.

"Let's be ready in no more than an hour, Rovers." The elkhound said.

Two and a half hours later, the elkhound was finally joined in the hanger by Sophie, Bliss, Tialer and Colleen. The elkhound was tapping his foot, but otherwise, showed no sign of his irritation. Brek, Exile and Muzzle entered shortly after, carrying some of Chance's gear. They passed out the communicators and handed Tialer a series of small devices. The elkhound recognized them as remote hacking drives. Chance used them to break into wireless networks. There were times where the elkhound was just down-right jealous of Chance's brain.

"Now that we've all had time to rest, I'd like to get under way." The elkhound said. "We have two separate targets to investigate today. I propose that we split up into two separate teams. Each team takes a Road Rover, and three X-Generation."

"It sounds good in theory, but Rover teams are designed to work _as_ teams. Breaking us up is just going to be breaking up our greatest strength." Sophie said. The elkhound shrugged.

"Okay then, where to?" Colleen asked.

Brek pulled out a world map. "Well, I'd advise looking into Canada. It's the more likely of the two spots, and the more accessible. We'd be traveling to Quebec. The second location is off of the Spanish coast. It's under water, but Chance is sure of the location."

"They both sound auspicious to me." Exile said.

"That was a very big word for you. I'm proud!" Colleen said, patting Exile on the shoulder.

"Thank you, comrade Colleen. I am gifted in language."

"Anyway." Tialer said, pushing Colleen out of the way with her hip. "I agree with Breckenridge. Canada would be the easier target. Which is why I say we check out the underwater location."

Colleen hipped Tialer out of the way. "True, but if you want a base to be secrete, why mail something directly to it?"

Tialer moved to hip Colleen out of the way again, but Sophie froze her feet to the floor. Tialer acted as though she weren't even fazed. "True, but it isn't like we were supposed to find that base in Antarctica, either. Oh, and look a' that, mate. That's where we found you!"

"Just one question," Exile said, looking at the map. "Which one of you is Breckenridge?" he looked up at the X-Generation. Brek raised his hand. "Okey-dokey. Am agreeing with loud-mouth boy-name dog." Tialer gave Exile a wicked stare. Sophie made a point to freeze Tialer's hands to her sides.

"So, to the Spanish coast it is, then!" the elkhound called.

Everyone was excited to use the Sub Rover. The X-Generation didn't even know they had a submarine and the Road Rovers apparently had a good history with it. Colleen and Exile insisted on taking the controls, earning a squabble from Breckenridge. Brek's childish behavior aside, the trip went rather smoothly. It took a lot longer than it would have had the Rovers just flown; however, it was a new experience for the X-Gen so there was never a dull moment.

The elkhound watched fish swim by the viewing window. He had never seen such colors before! Not in animals anyway. Then again, rumor had it that parrots were pretty colorful themselves, but the elkhound had never seen one before. Sophie came to stand next to the elkhound, but she said nothing. That was unusual for her. The two of them simply stood there, watching the massive towers of stone and vegetation drift by. Sophie touched the window, and it fogged over. She sighed, and tried wiping it off, only to form tiny ice crystals.

"Eh, every blessing has its downsides." She whispered. The elkhound simply nodded. He wasn't so sure she was absolutely right, but who was he to say? "When were you going to tell us?" Sophie asked.

The elkhound looked away from the fogged window into the malamute's frost-blue eyes. "Tell you what?" Sophie pulled out a familiar piece of paper from her pocket. The elkhound carefully checked his own pocket, but found nothing there.

"When did you take it?" he asked, surprised at how calm his voice was.

"Shortly after you were looking at it in the common room. No, Brek didn't tell me anything about the contents; and to be honest, he actually warned me about this package when I showed it to him." She unfolded the picture. The elkhound stepped forward, but the moment his feet touched the ground, they were frozen in place. The elkhound straightened himself as best as he could in his suspended walking position, and glared at Sophie. "You were cute as a puppy." She said, handing the picture over. "You smiled a lot more, I see." She paused, and handed the adoption form over. "For what it's worth, I didn't read the paper. I recognized what it was, but I wanted to hear what it said from your mouth. What's your name, _elkhound_?"

The elkhound took the paper from Sophie's hand, and carefully refolded both forms together. "You're wrong, by the way. I didn't smile much back then. That picture is of a little girl's favorite present. She played with it for a grand total of about four hours before it was old news and nothing more than a burden for her and her family. The puppy in that picture was neglected and ignored for _months_ before he jumped town."

The elkhound turned and started walking for the door to the back room, but stopped at the door. "And for what it's worth, that puppy's name is Argo. Me? I'm not that puppy. I don't _have_ a name." the elkhound closed the door softly behind him, realizing only then that his feet had been unfrozen. The elkhound pulled out the picture and the adoption form. He stared at them for a long time before he dropped them to the floor.

Sophie stepped into the back room some time later, Bliss at her side. "Argo, eh? Well, it's by no means a bad name for him. Argo is the name of a constellation, I think."

"Well, he's touchy about it, and I don't blame him. He was apparently neglected by these people. What kind of master neglects a dog? A _puppy_?" Sophie shook her head. "No wonder he's always so gloomy."

"Yeah, and you still like him." Bliss made as though to say something else, but spotted the papers on the floor. "What's this?"

Bliss picked up the picture and Sophie took the adoption form. "Your right. He was cute as a pup." Bliss smiled.

Sophie ran her hand over the adoption form. Everything was there, but the name section was blotted out. The ink was still drying.

"_Comrades! We have spotted under-watered base!"_ Exile called on the COM.

"Am I the only one who can't understand him?" Bliss asked.

"Eh, probably not." Sophie said, tucking the adoption form into her pocket along with the picture.

The elkhound was already with the rest of the Rovers when Bliss and Sophie arrived. Exile had parked the sub just in view of the base to avoid detection. Colleen was busy punching in some technical data into the ship's computer, and Brek was checking the long-range radio. "Chance isn't up yet." He reported.

"Alright, then. I vote we see what we can do here. Remember, there's a Road Rover in there." The elkhound said, adjusting his armor.

"Right, but what if we run into some security or something?" Tialer asked.

"Exile 'ere can take care o' that." Colleen said, patting her friend on the shoulder. Exile seemed to light up in glee.

"Only problem is that we still need someone to open the front door. Can you do that from in here?" Brek asked Exile.

Exile's smile vanished. "Uh, maybe is voice activated?"

"Yup. Under water magic word, mate. That makes sense." Tialer said, picking at her teeth with a scuba knife.

"Dah! Like 'Openny Salami'." Exile said.

"Right-o then. Let's just try blasting our way into their sub hanger on the far wall there." Colleen said pointing to a submarine launch bay. The bay was an open hole on the bottom of one of the base's wings, with gravity as the only way of keeping it dry.

"Blasting that could well be blasting out only way in or out of there." The elkhound said plainly. "And security in there is going to be tight."

"Can you teleport us inside?" Bliss asked.

The elkhound thought for a moment. "Not in a single jump. I can go only about a hundred yards at a time, so we'd have to make several stops on the way. In this kind of water pressure, that would be pulling it close."

"Okay, then." Colleen said, turning to the ship's controls. "I'm setting an auto-course that will take us within fifty yards of the base. We'll take fire, but unless I'm wrong, you should be able to get us in there, right?"

The elkhound thought for a moment, and nodded. "Just be ready to hold your breath."

Colleen nodded, and punched in a series of controls. The Sub Rover began approaching the base. This was the first good look at it anyone had gotten. More or less, the thing looked like a giant cement block with large, round metal and glass towers jutting out in every odd direction. A little red light began flashing on the Sub Rover's panel. "Torpedoes are incoming!" Exile yelled.

"Get ready, elkhound. We're going to have to do this fast!" Tialer said.

"Everyone in pairs of two!" the elkhound called. He waited until Colleen shouted "Now!" the elkhound grabbed Brek and Tialer's wrists, and flexed his arms. "Jumping" was literal telekinesis. The world around them vanished in a cloud of dust, and re-formed the same way. When the elkhound opened his eyes, he was in the enemy sub hanger, standing on a dry dock. He let go of Brek and Tialer, and jumped back to the Sub Rover. He grabbed Sophie and Bliss, and jumped. In a little over one minute, everyone was in the base. Brek and Tialer had already disabled most of the security, though a few stubborn guards still fired their blasters at the Rovers.

The room got cold suddenly as Sophie sent a massive stream of white fog at the guards. The men didn't have time to react before they were frozen solid. "I like this girl." Exile remarked, looking at the frozen guards. The Rovers moved up to a security door.

"Brek, you're up." Sophie said. Breckenridge stepped up to the metal door, and ripped it out of the wall. Tialer dropped one of Chance's hacking devices on the ground so that everything Chance needed was right there when he woke up.

"Okay, I say we break up into teams." Brek said. They had reached a junction of walkways. The Rovers broke up into teams of two, except for Brek and Tialer, who took Muzzle with them. That left the elkhound by himself. It was decided that this was best, as his power allowed him the most freedom of anyone there so long as he didn't have to drag someone along with him. The elkhound held a standard-issue Rover blaster in one hand, and a small device Tialer had given him in the other hand. Everyone wore radios, but they were for Chance and emergency purposes only. The base was on full alert, and there were guards every hundred feet.

The elkhound simply vanished into a wall, and waited for them to walk or jog by. He got lucky, however, when he found a guard by himself. The elkhound jumped trough a wall, and counted off the time it would take for the guard to walk by, and then jumped back out. He caught the guard by the neck, and the elkhound drew his pistol. "No yelling, no resistance. I'm going to ask you two questions, and you're going to answer them. Comprende?" the elkhound said. The guard nodded. "First question. Is there a prison hold on this station, and where is it? No tricks."

The guard made a gulping noise. "Okay, okay. Uh…the prison cell is in the very bottom of the station. We only have two prisoners right now, and there's only light security."

"Good. Second question starts with a statement. I know that at least one of those prisoners is a Road Rover, if not both of them. Why did you or your boss take them hostage? My friends think that it was to secure a more stable form of cano-mutating, but I don't believe that for a second." The elkhound quickly checked to make sure they were still alone. The elkhound also took a moment to flip on his radio so that everyone could hear what was being said.

"The boss, his name is Havoc. He is in the process of making genetic clones of Rovers in order to generate chaos on the surface. The clone Rovers would attack people in every country, but seemingly with a purpose. Countries will grow tired of this, declare war on one another after evidence is planted that the clone Rovers are being hired by other countries. He thrives in war. He sells weapons, you see?" the elkhound had heard enough. He smacked the guard with the butt of his blaster, and the man went limp. The elkhound used some paracord to tie the man's hands, legs and mouth. The Rovers found the news just as disturbing as the elkhound did.

"If that's what they're doing here, we have to stop it." The elkhound said.

"_And the idiot award for obvious statement goes to…no-name!_" Tialer replied.

"_Cut that out_." Colleen said. "_Elkhound, can you teleport to the basement_?"

"I don't think so. I may be able to jump one floor at a time, but I'd have to have an idea of where I was going. If I'm not careful, I could wind up outside with no way back in, or halfway through a wall. Neither one would be pretty."

"_Maybe I could help with that_." Chance radioed.

"_Good morning_." Bliss called.

"_Afternoon, actually, and it's good to hear from you too. Elkhound, it looks to me like you've only got about a story or two below you. This place is shaped like a bee hive, so your safest bet is going to be to find your way to the middle, and work your way down from there_." Chance said over the sound of typing. "_It looks as though Sophie and Bliss are the closest ones to you. I'm sending them your current position. You may well need their help down there._"

"Alright. Get the rest of the team on finding some way to put this station the rest of the way to the sea floor." The elkhound ordered.

"_Yes, sir_." Chance replied.

The elkhound didn't have to wait very long for Sophie and Bliss to arrive. With Chance directing them, the trio found their way to the center of the building. "At this point in time, you can either teleport, or use the stair way to your left, though I needn't remind you that the stairs are going to be crowded with guards." Chance said.

"Thanks for the assist." The elkhound said. He reached out for Bliss's and Sophie's hands. He noticed Sophie blush slightly, but she turned her face away. The elkhound cleared his head, and decided on ghosting. The world flashed, and filled with the streaking smoke that was now so familiar to the elkhound. "I haven't ever ghosted through floors before, so this may take a try or two." He told Bliss and Sophie. They nodded. The elkhound tried simply lowering himself, but to no effect. He tried jumping, kicking, and even talking his way through.

"Maybe it takes flexing a different muscle group to go through floors." Bliss suggested.

The elkhound shrugged. It was worth a shot. He flexed his chest, his arms, and then his legs. The three of them slipped right through the floor, with a shocked _yipe_ from Sophie. The floors of the building flashed past their vision. The elkhound timed the stop as carefully as he could. Just as he was going to jump back in to the real-time world, it came back on its own.

"_You've dropped five floors._" Chance reported. "_Two more of those and you're there._"

"Copy that. How are the others?" the elkhound replied.

"_They're en rout to the command center of this station. The boiler room was too heavily guarded._"

"Alright, then. Do you have remote access to the Sub Rover?"

"_Yes. Why?"_

"When I radio in, bring it in as close as you can. I'm going to jump the prisoners straight to it. From there, I can jump a second time to get the rest of the Rovers out of here."

"_Good plan. I'll have it ready in less than two minutes._"

"You know what's funny," Sophie asked once Chance had stopped talking, "we never really selected a leader for ourselves, but you're not doing too shabby of a job."

The elkhound looked at her in shock. Bliss gave a thoughtful nod. "Sophie has a point, you know."

"Let's talk about this later." The elkhound took Sophie and Bliss's hands, and jumped them down another five stories. Next, the elkhound began dropping one floor at a time. The last thing he wanted to do was over shoot the bottom floor. This prison cell wasn't quite as nice as the one in Antarctica, but it wasn't as well guarded. Sophie froze two guards, and Bliss pulsed another four. The elkhound ghosted, and knocked down three more.

"Clear over here." Sophie reported.

"Clear." The elkhound replied.

There was another pulsing sound, and a short pause. "Clear." Bliss called. The three dogs came together.

"Alright, let's see who we've got down here." Sophie said.

"_Sophie, you should be able to freeze the doors' bolts, and Bliss can pulse them. That should be more than enough to take them off of their hinges._"Chance reported.

"What would we do without you, Chance?" Bliss asked.

"_You would probably have to rely on Brek to break all of your doors._"

"Oh, wouldn't that be an adventure." Bliss muttered sarcastically.

The elkhound shrugged. "Well, let's get to work. You two start ripping doors down over there, and I'll see if I can find anyone in these over here." He said. Sophie and Bliss nodded, but the station gave a heavy surge suddenly, sending them all to their stomachs. "Report!" the elkhound demanded.

There was a moment of silence, and the Colleen replied.

"_It wasn't us!_"

"_Brek and I didn't do anything either!_" Tialer called.

"_I don't think I triggered any alarms_." Chance said.

"You don't _think_ you did?" Sophie snapped.

"_Cool it! I know I didn't. I'm in their network as we speak. Hold on…oh, jeeze. This Havoc guy was expecting you! All personnel have been evacuated. He's sinking the entire station!_" Chance could be heard frantically typing at his keyboards. "_There's nothing I can do. It looks like Havoc planted remote-activated charges all around the place. They're on a hidden network. I can't help you._"

"Rovers, get back to the sub hanger! Chance, get the sub to them pronto! Soph, Bliss and I are getting our guys out of here!" the elkhound shouted into his radio as he teleported through the wall into a cell. Empty.

"_Alright. You heard the elkhound. Rovers, get to it! I'll bring the Sub Rover right into their hanger now that it's open." _Chance ordered.

"_We're already in the computer room. Do we have time to strip his database_?" Tialer asked.

"_Niet! Just rip memory from computer, and get moving_!" Exile replied.

The elkhound walked through the wall into the next cell, and bumped into a giant mop of a dog. The dog let out a cowardly scream, and sprinted into a corner. "Who do we have here?" he asked into the radio, pressing the button for live-feed video.

"'_At's Shag_!" Colleen howled, sounding as though she were yelling. "_Don't worry too much. 'E doesn't bite very often._"

The elkhound turned to Shag, who was defending himself with a chair. "Shag, it's alright. I'm a friend. I'm here to help you."

Shag seemed to think for a moment, considering the possibility that this was some kind of trick. A second charge went off and the base began to tilt slightly. A loud alarm went off, signaling a critical puncture in the hull. Shag's mind was made up. He jumped for the elkhound's arms. "Alright, don't panic on me, or this could get very difficult." The elkhound said. Time slowed around the elkhound and Shag, and the elkhound ran through the wall of the cell. Outside, Bliss and Sophie were working on the last cell door. Its hinges were already frozen. A massive pulse of air shattered the metal, and the door came crashing down. Another charge went off just as the door hit the ground. The station began to lean over a tad more.

"_You are running _very_ short on time in there!_" Chance yelled.

"W_e're almost done in the computer room._" Brek replied.

The real shock was when The Master's voice came through on the radio. "_Rovers. Do you have the hostages?_"

"_Sir, yes sir_."

"_Then nothing else matters. We'll find Havoc later. Just get out of there before it's too late!_"

"You heard The Master! Get moving, Brek!" the elkhound shouted. Another charge detonated, sending everyone to the floor. The elkhound landed nose to nose with a Labrador mix.

"Funny way to meet a fella'." The lab said getting up. "Name's Hunter. What's yours?"

"Don't have one…look, can we talk about this later?"

"Sure thing. How can I help?"

"I don't know if you can. We just have to get to that hanger, or we're all fish food."

"Got it. (What is it with the bad guy's bases always exploding, anyway?)" Hunter scooped up Bliss in his arms. "Hi, I'm Hunter." He said. Suddenly, he was gone and a thin trail of fire lead out of the room, and up the stairway.

"Wow. He's fast." The elkhound said in awe. The three remaining Rovers sprinted full-force for the sub hanger.

Charges detonated all around the base and the elkhound could feel the pressure increase as the base sank lower and lower into the ocean. They reached the hanger just as the insides of the base were beginning to catch fire and the walls began to spew water. Internal charges shook the foundation of the building. Shag was already at the sub, and Sophie and the elkhound weren't far behind. The elkhound's vision slowed. He looked up just as a charge on the ceiling exploded. He was still running, but everything was moving in slow motion. He looked down, and saw Sophie screaming. She was being pulled into the sub, but she was reaching for the elkhound. The charge on the ceiling had broken gravity's hold on the water.

The walls cracked, and then broke, and the water under the sub shook with the violence of the falling water. Sophie was inside of the sub, but the elkhound could see her through the window. He stumbled and fell to the ground, still in slow motion.

The world was nothing but the roaring of the water around him. He looked back to the window of the Sub Rover. He couldn't hear Sophie, but saw her screaming his name. He closed his eyes, and covered his head. The world came back into full motion, and the water took him with the deafening roar of the ocean. He didn't hear it. All he could hear was Sophie's scream. "Argo!!"


	8. Dealing with Depression

**Chapter 8 – Dealing with Depression**

The sub was completely silent. Bliss and Colleen had Sophie wrapped up in a blanket. She held a cup of warm coffee, but wasn't even sipping it. They had looked for the elkhound as long as they could, but the base had simply taken in too much water. It sank, and toppled into a giant crack in the sea floor; too deep for the Sub Rover to go. Hunter walked over, but found his mouth dry and wordless. He sighed, bowing his head. He felt so…powerless. Not even his super friendliness could help him right now. Hunter looked back up. Sophie's coffee was frozen solid, and even thin wisps of steam had been frozen together and stuck in place, suspending the coffee in time.

Back at home, Chance was doing everything in his power to find the elkhound. His radio wasn't water proof, and the locator device that Tialer had given him had apparently been damaged. The Master was preparing a deep-sea team to investigate the ruins of Havoc's base, but that would take time.

As for the Rovers on the sub, there was an over-whelming sense of hopelessness. Tialer slumped with arms folded in one of the captain's chairs, staring out the window. Brek and Exile were at the controls, and Shag was somewhere in the back with Muzzle. Hunter had finally settled with sitting next to Sophie on the floor. He put a single arm around Sophie, who was glad for the company. Hunter looked up at Colleen, frowning.

Tialer pulled out a combat knife that she had strapped to her armor, and began twirling it. Brek looked back at Tialer. "What are you thinking about?" he asked.

"Take a guess, lummox?"

He shook his head. "You only play with the knife like that when you're thinking about something…and I mean really, really thinking about it."

Tialer sighed. "Havoc knew we were coming." Everyone looked back at Tialer.

"Uh, come again?" Hunter sat up a tad.

"So far we've gone into two of his bases, and we've pulled out two casualties. You guys have faced this guy plenty of times before, and never with incident." Tialer tossed the knife in the air, and balanced it on the tip of her finger.

"_I see your point._" Chance said. He could be heard adjusting in his wheel chair. "_Even so, we don't have any solid proof that he _was _expecting us. Maybe we're just unlucky that way? When I said Havoc was expecting you back there, I was only attempting to provoke my own thought. I don't actually think that that's the case._"

"No. He's testing us." Tialer turned her chair to face the window, putting her back to the Rovers. "Somehow, he found out that there was a new team being built for a Rescue effort. If not that, then he knew that there _would_ be a rescue effort. Hasn't anyone else noticed how easy it is to get into his bases, but it's always a close call getting out? Chance, you wouldn't have made it were it not for the elkhound."

"_Also a good point. So, what do we think?_" Chance asked.

"She's right. Why else would they be separating the Road Rovers?" Bliss noted. "Because if they were together, Havoc would have only one shot at getting us all. With the Rovers separated, he has a margin for error." Tialer said, tossing the knife into the air. "That also means that the remaining Rover is a sure booby trap. We can expect to see something a lot less conservative than breaching charges this time."

Sophie sighed, and tried adjusting. She squirmed in an effort to find a comfortable position. Her temper got the best of her. With a growl of fury, she threw the frozen coffee cup across the submarine. The mug shattered on the metal wall. "I say we charge head first into there, and find this _Havoc_! I'd like to show him exactly how I feel!" she seemed to want to say more, but Hunter gently pulled her down.

"Hey, c'mon. Let's not talk like that." Hunter struggled for something to say. "If you want justice, we'll do what we've always done. The only difference is this time, when he's convicted we'll put him somewhere much more tight than before so his goons can't break him out again."

"That's it then? We slap his wrist? How would you feel if it was Colleen that had just died back there?" tears rolled out of Sophie's eyes, and froze to the fur on her face. Her question caught both Hunter and Colleen off guard. Of course, everyone was saddened about the loss, but nobody said so. Sophie wouldn't hear them anyway. "I never even told him." She sobbed.

Everyone sat in a circle in the common room. Brek assisted Chance into an armchair. "So," Sophie choked back a sob, "what's the plan?"

The Master, who sat with them, tapped his chin. Nobody said anything, not even in response to Sophie's question. On a round coffee table in the middle of the circle was the elkhound's adoption form and photo. Bliss leaned forward and looked at the address on the form.

"For all the anger I should feel toward Havoc, I'm just as mad at these people." She rubbed her arm. "I dunno. I guess looking at it, I somehow feel that if they had treated him better, things would have been different, you know?"

"Unlikely." Chance admitted. "If things were any different, it wouldn't have been in a way any of us would like."

"Huh?" Hunter voiced.

"The elkhound would have been inclined to deny the offer to be a Rover, I'd be dead, and so would some other Rover. I hate to make this about figures and statistics, but there you go." Chance rubbed one of his legs, as though it were swore.

"I suggest we all get some rest and start over tomorrow." The Master said as he stood to leave.

Nobody followed The Master's example. They found comfort in one another's company. Even the Road Rovers, who had known the elkhound for only a short time, couldn't have made it without the company.

"I almost feel sorry for The Master." Bliss said, having made an observation. "When we loose a comrade, we have one another. He doesn't have any other humans to be with."

The simple observation made the room shift. "I 'avent ever thought about that." Colleen admitted.

"Technically, we're more human that common dogs," Chance paused, sighing, "but I suppose he does get lonely. We retain dog traits that he just can't compare to. That's got to be rough."

Silence ensued. As Rovers and as comrades they sat and silently passed between mourning for the fallen rover, and pondering The Master's position. Bliss supported Sophie with one arm, and Hunter held Colleen. Brek hesitated a moment before taking Tialer into his arms.

Chance silently observed the scene. The one part he hated about how his mind worked was everything became mathematical and scientific. He judged the various relationships, their possible uses and their possible downfalls. Bliss and Sophie were practically sisters. Chance wouldn't have been surprised to learn that they _were_ by some miracle of nature. Hunter and Colleen were an obvious match, though the shocker was Brek and Tialer. Chance forced himself to stop thinking. If he went further, his mind would automatically begin finding ways to use these observations for missions.

They were Rovers and they were his friends. Not chess pieces.

Sleep didn't come easy for anyone, and for Sophie, it was absent all together. All night, her final moments with Argo played before her eyes like a movie caught in a glitch. Her confronting him about his name, holding his hand…the look in his eyes as he realized he was going to die. That was the worst.

.

Havoc slammed his fist on the counter in rage. "This was not our deal!" he roared.

"No, it wasn't." The man in all white said. His suit, pants and hat reflected the light, giving him an aura of his own. His face was hidden behind a full-face gas mask. The only color on the man was the red lenses of his mask, giving him a devilish look.

"That's all you have to say? I lose my two most strategically placed outposts and your response is 'no it wasn't'?" Havoc licked the fronts of his teeth and sat back. "Am I to assume that my investment is going to pay off?"

"I _am_ sorry, but this was a necessary investment. It is what I encourage you to do, Havoc. I have the resources I need, thanks to your suffrage and partnership. You will be paid off to the full, and some." The Man known only as 'White' said.

Havoc nodded reluctantly. "I'll just have to trust you on this one White." Havoc tapped a pen against the desk for a moment before continuing. "That's settled, then. We will move on to my contribution to your super-soldiers. The genetic testing has made a major step forward today, but we're still trying to stabilize the clones. The fact is, we need more than hair samples. The muscle systems are all coming in clear, but my scientists are bombarded by instances of organ and skeletal failure. If we could have a look at your sample…"

"That is not an option at this time, Havoc." White interrupted. "My sample is still unstable. I cannot afford to lose it so soon. However, thanks to your losses, we know 'Arkantos' will be well worth the cost of creating."

"Play your cards carefully, White." Havoc said, balling his hand into a tight fist. "You are the investor, but _I_ make all of the calls. Double cross me like that again, and I'll see you on the sea floor with my fallen base."

.

Chance pushed himself down into his chair with a growl. He'd been in his physical therapy session all morning, just as he had done every morning since he was released from the ER. The Master picked up the walking canes that Chance had thrown. "Chance, you have to be persistent, or you'll never walk again."

Chance made sure they were alone before he shuttered. "I can't do this, Master!" He gave a dog whine.

"Yes you can. Hubort tells me the damage to your spine is not as bad as Sophie and he had initially thought. You have a chance to heal." The Master said, offering the walking canes. "Come on, what do you say we give it a shot?"

Chance ran a shaking hand over his wheelchair's armrest. Tears soaked into his cheek fur and his arms shook as though it were ten degrees in the room. "Master, I…I just can't." Chance rubbed his eye and slumped down. "Look at me. I'm a dog in a chair! I…I'm not like the others anymore! I can't go on missions; I cant run, work on the practice course. Nothing!"

The Master sighed and took a knee next to Chance. "That's the interesting thing about folks like you and I." He said, smiling wryly. "When individuals are put in our position, they don't really fit in anywhere."

"You heard us talking about you the other night, didn't you?" Chance blushed under his fur.

"And you were absolutely correct. The fact is, I don't have time for outside contacts. My life _is_ the Rovers. I've dedicated my life to this program in hopes that it will change the world for the better. I've made some grave sacrifices to keep this dream alive. I don't have a family, friends, peers and my own dog, whom I consider my best friend, has been mentally deranged to an extent that may never be repairable." The Master stood long enough to pull an armchair up next to Chance's wheelchair.

"I still don't see that you can compare to me," Chance admitted. "You can always get those things back. You can always find friends, you can always find a wife, have kids. Your sacrifices are deeply appreciated, don't get me wrong, but they can be undone. Mine can't. You and I both know that, Master."

"Chance, what are you holding back?" The Master asked kindly.

Chance sobbed, but continued. It felt good to vent. "Master, what about my family? I had a home back in Poland. I had a family and a very nice spot overlooking a small farm. What if they don't want me how I am? I don't know what I would do with myself?"

The Master winced. A dog's devotion was never easy to deal with. If Chance's heart was set on a family, it was set in stone. "Chance, I don't think they'd care. If it helps, I would do you the unique honor of telling your family exactly why you have been so injured."

Chance nodded. _It wasn't good enough. _The Master realized. "And if…_if_…they still don't accept you home after that, you can always find a home here with Scout and me."

Chance and The Master sat in silence for a long moment before Chance finally asked, "Can I be alone for a little bit?"

"Of course, Chance." The Master walked over to one of the exits, but stopped long enough before exiting to say, "Chance, you'll always have a home here."

A full week passed. Chance tapped at his keyboards as he searched for the remaining Rover. Where ever Havoc was holding Blitz, Chance could bet on a rough fight. This was Havoc's last oppertunity, and he wasn't likely to screw this one up so easily. Chance had reduced the number of locations to three separate rumored bases. Two were in Europe and one in the perfect heart of Siberia. Knowing the nature of Havoc, the Siberian base seemed the most likely.

Sophie was at a point in time when all she did was lay on the couch and eat. Not that she ate much, but it was the only other activity worth mentioning. The Road Rovers watched over Chance's back as he worked.

"C'mon, Blister. Where you hiding?" Colleen muttered as she watched a cross bar scan the globe for his locator. Every now and then, it would flash on screen, but vanish before Chance could get a secure connection to it.

This time, however, Chance was ready.

The red dot flashed. Chance typed in a command, and the computer locked onto the small signal. "Got him!" Chance announced loudly. After a full three weeks of searching, they had a secure location!

"Where is he?" Sophie asked in a voice that hadn't been heard almost at all for two of those weeks.

"Kansas?" Hunter scratched the back of his head. "Why Kansas?"

"Where's the first place you'd look?" Bliss asked, brushing her teeth.

"I don't know. Not Kansas, though." Hunter replied.

"Exactly, knucklehead." Tialer voiced, leaning on Brek like a support beam.

"Uhh, I don't get it…no! Wait. I got it now. It's the last place we'd look!" Hunter laughed, giving Tialer a thumbs-up.

"You're lucky he so handsome." Tialer muttered to Colleen.

"I've thought the same at times." Colleen replied.

"So, what's the call? We already know we're running right for a trap." Chance asked, turning his chair so he could see the group.

There was silence again. Always with the silence! Sophie was the first to speak. "I'd almost like to break apart every wall and crush every body in the building, but we'd risk losing another Rover. I say we go in tactically, but send some kind of diversion to another base first. That way, they think we thought he was at the wrong base and don't think we're coming."

"I like this planski." Exile nodded with approval.

"And how do we hope to pull off a diversion large enough that they notice it in this Kansas Base?" Tialer asked.

Brek covered a forced cough with a fist. "I think I can manage that with Sophie's first plan. I'll head to one of Havoc's smaller bases, punch a few holes in walls, get men to shoot at me and have a dandy ol' time."

"That would work." Chance nodded.

"I'll go with him. In case he runs into trouble." Tialer made it sound as though she were being pushed into the task.

Chance turned his chair to better view the crowd. "I've had a thought. Why not switch the numbers around. We send two Rovers to the Kansas base, and everyone else to draw attention. If we want a diversion, let's make it a real one!"

"Hey, nice thinking, Chance!" Hunter exclaimed. "We could even attack multiple bases. It may make Parvo think we're confused."

"Havoc." Colleen corrected.

"What did I say?" Hunter asked.

"You said Parvo. We're after Havoc."

"Sorry, Colleen. It's force-of-habit at this point."

"Fair enough."

"That over with, I'd like everyone to gear up. But first, who's going where?" Chance asked.

"I'm going to Kansas." Sophie announced, leaving no room for debate.

"I'll go with her." Bliss suggested.

"Okay then, Rovers. Gear up, and by the time you're ready, I'll have details ready for you." Chance rolled to his computer room. "Everyone, stay safe, and keep in contact over the radio as much as possible. I'm going to call in for Rover support for this one."

"Let's be ready to launch in two hours, Rovers." Chance said after calling for technical support from the Space Rovers. The room had gotten very cold suddenly. Chance turned to watch Sophie leave.


	9. Arkantos

**Chapter 9 – Arkantos**

It opened his eyes, but regretted doing so immediately. The light of the conscious world burned like fire. Its eyes, even gummed over as they were, saw in a special kind of clarity. Even through its eyelids, it could see the heartbeats of creatures moving about. It had the distinct feeling that they meant him ill will, but it found a lack of energy to defend himself.

So, it watched. They stood in place most of the time, occasionally being replaced by more beating hearts that mimicked their predecessors' activity. Every time he flexed his sore arms or legs, the heartbeats began quickening and only when he did this did the creatures begin moving. Panicking. They feared him?

There was one particular creature that interested him. The creature would come into view and pace back and forth, occasionally standing by other heartbeats, and sometimes it stood on its own.

The second time it tried opening his eyes, the pain was not quite as bad. It took him only a moment to figure out why. Only one eye was open. When it tried opening his other eye, the fire-like pain returned. It closed the eye, content to explore this new world with only his left eye.

For the first time, it could see that the heartbeats were those of scientists. The unique heartbeat had an equally unique creature. The thing was in all-white. Its hands, arms and face were all covered in white material. A gas mask with red lenses seemed to give the creature a sinister, yet proper look. A rapier, strapped to the creature's belt, caught the lights of the lab.

That was where he was, after all. A lab. Something in the back of his mind had already determined that. The all-white creature walked up to the containment tube and placed a single hand against the glass. The animal within placed a hand over the white creature's. The white creature jerked its head and began shouting orders almost audible through the glass.

Suddenly, the world around it shifted. The transparent gel that it had been suspended in began to drain out, leaving him cold and exposed. Once the gel had vanished through the drains, the glass cylinder began lifting away from the ground, where it lay.

The white creature walked up to it, who was curled in a ball on the ground. "Can you understand me?" the white creature asked.

He tried to talk, but found he wasn't able to. Instead, it gave a few facial twitched to respond. These were hidden by a mask that covered its muzzle. Why hadn't it seen that before?

The white creature reached down, and helped it up into a sitting position. "My name is Corin White and you are lucky to be alive. Do you know who you are?"

It knew the word it wanted to use. He took his time, and formulated the movement of muscles. "No."

White settled to one knee, and placed a blanket around the creatures narrow shoulders. "Your name is Arkantos. You were my best soldier once, but you were caught in an explosion. You almost died. We've been helping you recover for weeks now."

Arkantos had the distinct feeling that he was being lied to for some reason, but ignored this feeling. Corin seemed nice. Arkantos flexed his leg muscles and rose from his sitting position. Standing, he was far taller than he had realized, standing taller than White by almost half a foot.

Blood began oozing from one of a hundred wounds that covered Arkantos's body. Arkantos studied his body with interest. Scabs and open wounds covered his muscular body in a pattern similar to a chain link fence. Where ever he didn't have scar tissue and blood, Arkantos was covered in long, thick fur colored a solid bone color.

White stood, and stepped back to examine Arkantos. He nodded with approval before reaching over to a table covered in gauze. White approached Arkantos and began wrapping the open wounds. He never removed the creature's mask, however.

Arkantos reached for the strap to work the mask himself, but White gripped his wrist. "I am sorry, my friend, but you can no longer live without that mask. In order to save your life, we had to feed you a healthy supply of Ribsonis. Ribsonis is a chemical that acts as a supplement for blood, as it works the same way blood cells do. However, it is very reactive with the nitrogen in our atmosphere. If you remove that mask, your lungs will begin rapidly breaking down as the Ribsonis reacts with the nitrogen in the air opening all of the veins that run through your lungs, throat and mouth essentially drowning you in your own blood.

"Then why give it to me?" Arkantos asked, pleased with how well formed his first full sentence sounded. His voice was rough, but deep.

"Because you lost the entirety of your blood in the explosion. You had bled out completely, to say it another way." White finished wrapping up the wounds on Arkantos's arm, and moved on to the neck and torso.

"Why save me?" Arkantos asked.

"Because you were a soldier once, who never questioned my knowledge. Not many soldiers are like that anymore." White explained as he moved on to the second arm. "And because you are unique. You are not canosapien, but you are not canomutant. You are in-between, capable of the greatest feats either creature has to offer, and with none of their faults.

They sat in silence as White finished covering the wounds. When he was done, Arkantos resembled a burn victim, or a mummy in some ways, except that fur still shown through the bandaging.

Arcantos rested by leaning against a wall. The gas mask and bandages were as much a part of him now as the fur on his back. White was always around, but not nearly as kind as he had been that first day. Rather than acting as some life-saving friend, White forced Arkantos to train for hours upon hours almost every day.

Arkantos didn't even know how long he'd been training. He had lost track of time. It was almost a welcome change when two armed guards entered Arkantos's holding cell. "White wants to see you, dog."

Arkantos knew the way, but the men insisted on escorting him none the less. White was standing in the laboratory's command center looking over some recent statistics. "Ah, Arkantos. It is good to see you. I hear your instructors all agree that you are ready for the field after so much training. You've been at it for almost two months now. That is very impressive." White set aside his data pad to face Arkantos. "I hate to be sending you out into the field so soon, but some competition has moved into town. I'm sending you on the small errand of removing them."

"How do you propose I do that, Master White?" Arkantos asked in his low tone.

"You have powers, military genius, and a weapon locker all at your disposal. Be creative by bandaged friend." White replied as he picked the data panel back up.

It was true that Arkantos had powers. "Telepulsing" was similar to telekenisis, except that instead of teleporting yourself, you teleported a massive surge of air. To think of it in a simple manner, you were using high-pressure, high-velocity waves of air to crush bones, barriers, and everything else.

Arkantos was lead to the weapon locker right below the command center. A variety of machine pistols, blasters and combat armors lined the walls. Arkantos didn't care for the looks of any of them. He preferred to use his own abilities. "How do I get to the target?" Arkantos asked his guard.

"Follow me." The guard replied.

.

(Three hours later at Rover HQ)

Chance watched as the Rovers checked one another's armoring. The standard field armor had been modified by Chance to include blast resistant shielding and a more effective weather resistance. The expense was extra weight, but not much more.

"Chance, these weigh a ton!" Bliss complained as she pulled at one of the adjustment straps on the shoulder.

"But they'll stop bullets. I hear that bullets don't weigh much if you'd rather have those cover you." He commented, not exactly sure how much since the statement made.

"At least it looks cool." Hunter said. The curves of the armor had been replaced by more angular fold-sections in an effort to displace some of the impact of enemy rounds and explosives.

"I feel like I'm in the dark ages." Tialer groaned.

"Hey, let's see you do any better!" Chance snapped back, insulted.

Brek seemed to be the only one who was genuinely pleased with the new suit. He ran a finger over one of the shoulder guards. "Clean. Shiny. Effective. How awesome do you get?"

"It's only good for you because you can stand the weight." Tialer said, giving the shin guard an experimental tap with her heel.

"Fine then, if you don't like the adjustments just remove them." Chance crossed his arms. Everyone went to squabbling with the armor, helping one another remove the angular add-ons. From the corner of his eye, Chance noted Sophie sitting in a corner, looking out of a side window. She made no move to remove her armor, but chances were that she hadn't heard a word of what had been said.

Chance wheeled over to her, and looked out the window as well. Here, the heat of the desert had no hold. Plants grew along a small brook that ran under the Rover base and eventually ran the length of the canyon that housed Rover HQ. In recent years, the Master had expanded to the desert floor itself, but the underground portion remained the main segment of the base.

The window viewed the majority of the older section of the base. It was actually a lovely view. "You can remove the armor if you don't like it. I promise I won't bark?" Chance said half-jokingly.

"I can't forget him, Chance." Sophie muttered.

Chance nodded to himself. He had expected as much. "Who ever said we have to forget him?"

"I'm not saying anyone _has_ to. I'm just trying to. I can't let him be a source of distraction. Everyone is counting on me being at the top of my game." Sophie shivered as though she were cold. Chance would have moved to comfort her were he able to do so. Besides that, physical contact with her at this point in time would be unpleasantly chilly. "I can't forget him, Chance. I loved him."

"We all know you did." Chance said, not sure how that was supposed to be a comfort. He sighed, feeling helpless. "If you aren't feeling up to this mission, tell me now. I can call in support and we can still get the work done while you recover."

Sophie shook her head. "No. I'm up for it."

"Hey Chance, Sophie. Come check this out!" Brek called over to them.

Sophie sighed and hopped down from the window sill. She got behind Chance's wheel chair and pushed him over to the group.

"What are we watching?" Chance asked, seeing that they had turned on the room's TV to a local news station.

"Blimey. Look a' that!" Colleen muttered in awe.

Chance looked at the TV screen, where the images of a flaming naval base were being broadcasted live. A news reporter spoke.

"_Thom, were live at the scene of the calls. This naval base had been abandoned for years, so local authority hadn't thought it necessary to keep an eye on the place. Wreckage made the harbor inaccessible and rust has taken over. Apparently, United States most-wanted Zachary Storm saw it a suiting place to mount a military coup._

"_The police are currently searching the entire base, finding victims of what appeared to be a massive attack, most likely that of a local aggressor organization. We don't have any numbers of deceased yet, though the police have reserved an entire local morgue for the dead._

_Most of the base appears to have been destroyed by missile and explosive attacks, though investigators insist that they have found no evidence of typical reactants."_

"She's not very intelligible." Chance commented. "Missiles don't use reactants. Not like that, any way."

"Look. Is canosapien on TVski!" Exile exclaimed.

The image they saw was of a Canosapien wrapped like a mummy in gauze and wore a breathing mask. His eyes were hidden in goggles that may well have been meant for swimming. The canosapien had emerged from a burning pile of debris. It dusted itself off and adjusted one of the bandages. Only then did it notice the news helicopters and armed police swarming the base. The police moved to arrest the canosapien, who suddenly took off toward the destroyed base's water front. Police opened fire, and the canosapien returned fire with attacks that looked suspiciously similar to Bliss's smoke attacks. The canosapien made it to the water, and vanished beneath the surface. It never reemerged.

"Who was _that_?" Hunter asked.

"I don't recognize him." Bliss said. "Then again, I haven't seen many Rovers outside of HQ."

Chance pulled out a data screen from the side of his wheelchair's pocket, and hooked it up to the TV. The screen took a dimensional shot of the image on the TV and ran it through the Rover Database. The computer had trouble working past the gasmask and goggles, though it still managed to pull up a result. Chance looked at the computer screen before dismissing the result.

"I can't pull up anything realistic." He reported aloud. "We may have just seen one of Havoc's clones."

"One of me?" Bliss asked.

"Something like it, I'm sure." Chance looked down at his computer pad.

.

(3 hours earlier, onboard assault submarine.)

Arkantos's instinct made him hold his breath as the sinking chamber filled with water. "_Okay, Ark. Pressure is equalized. You're free to launch. Good luck._" The water-proof radio popped. The voice sounded muddied by the water.

Arkantos flipped open the door to the sub's flood chamber, and floated up into the waves above.

"Today, the legacy of Zachery Storm is brought to an abrupt end." Arkantos replied with a churning laugh. His heart sank to his stomach. This was wrong.


	10. First Encounter

**Chapter 10 – First Encounter**

"All teams are ago_._" Chance reported. Two Rovers from a local detachment assisted him in the effort. They would be in charge of the distraction while Chance assisted directly with the recovery of Blitz.

"Showing green light across the board on recon, Sir." One of the two detachment Rovers reported.

"Likewise, though be advised that enemy has an incoming shipment of unknown purpose. Convoy of trucks reported fifteen miles away from the diversion force."

Chance turned his attention to his own team. "Sophie, Bliss. Diversion team has reported green. You're clear to begin. Call me if you run into trouble, but keep as quiet as possible otherwise_._"

"_Roger that, Chance._" Bliss replied.

.

Bliss and Sophie belly-crawled for the small base. Security guards paced the perimeter, blaster weapons in hand. A security checkpoint seemed the best way inside until Bliss pointed out a small side door in the fence. It was held by a heavy padlock. Sophie gave her hand a few jerking motions, summoning a small cloud of white mist that hovered around her hand, ending at her wrist. She gripped the padlock for a few moments before giving it a hard jerk. The super-chilled metal broke into tiny, brittle pieces.

"Let's move." Sophie whispered lightly.

The two of them double-checked to make sure they hadn't been seen before slipping inside the base. There was a short sprint through an open field before they reached the actual building. Sophie and Bliss both confirmed they were still covert. No alarm had been raised. The long-range radio suddenly popped.

"_Be advised. Truck convoy is only ten miles away._"

"Let's hurry up." Bliss suggested.

Sophie froze the lock on an outside door, and Bliss kicked it open. They slipped inside, closing the door behind them. Once they were in, Sophie and Bliss accessed Chance's headsets for details on the base's layout. Surprisingly, the prison hold was on the top floor. They found a small stairway, and began making their way up. They ran into a guard, who Bliss knocked out with a swipe to the neck. Sophie caught the man, and dropped him in a tool closet.

The prison hold was well guarded by armed men, except that none of them were paying attention. Bliss and Sophie broke into the prison hold, and easily disabled all seven men in a matter of moments.

"Hello?" a voice called. "Ist someone there?"

It was Blitz! Bliss walked by the various windows until she found him. His room was cramped and he looked as though he hadn't eaten in a while. Not anything good, anyway. "Blitz, get back from the door!" Bliss called. Sophie summoned her strength, and super-chilled the entire door. Bliss gave it a pulse attack, and the entire thing shattered like massive pieces of glass.

.

Chance jumped when he heard the radio pop. "_Chance, are you there? We've got Blitz. Were getting out of here before anyone notices our mess._" Sophie reported.

"_Copy that. You have a small airship to assist in covering your escape. The diversion seems to have worked. Havoc's defenses are in low-alert._" Chance reported.

"_How are the others holding up out there_?" Bliss asked.

"_They're taking fire, but nothing serious. I'm pulling them out the moment you get on that escape jet."_ Chance said as he kept an eye on the base outskirts. "_Look out. The truck convoy is arriving as we speak._"

"_We'll be long gone before…drat!_" Sophie paused for a moment._ "The stairwell's been cut off. Chance, do we have another way out_?"

"_Looks like your best bet is going to be repelling, unless you want to risk the elevators."_ Chance replied.

.

Sophie looked at Bliss. "No ropes, Chance. We're taking the stairs."

There was silence for a moment, and then another. Bliss's head cocked to one side. "I think we're being jammed." She said.

Sophie's stomach twisted slightly. "Chance, come in! Say anything! Anything at all." She bit her lip.

"We need to get out of here." Bliss looked to the stair way, where two armed guards had found a body in a tool closet.

"Distraction." Sophie said, snapping her fingers. "I'll distract the enemy to a separate part of the base while you get to the jet. I'll hold them off as long as I can while you come to pick me up on the fly."

"'At's a good idea, dear!" Bliss said, excited. "Only problem is we don't have working radios. Make yourself obvious, okay?"

"Will do." Sophie nodded. She stood and watched as Bliss escorted Blitz toward the stairs. They weren't carrying any explosives, and Sophie never carried weapons, having no major need for them. She was going to have to do the distraction the good old fashion way.

Sophie stood out in the base's courtyard, sending razor sharp shards of super-chilled water flying through the air. The water pipe that she had ripped open provided more than an ample amount of freezable ammunition. Guards dove for cover as a scimitar-sized spike drove itself into the cement wall that they had been pressed against.

A small stream of mist wound like a charging snake, wrapping itself around a small number of soldiers, freezing them in place. Sophie let out a forced breath, bringing a large slab of ice down on a sniper on a rooftop. The man yelled for a brief moment before he silenced. Distantly, the sound of men rising to the alarm that had activated told Sophie that her plan had worked.

Either way, it was enough for Bliss and Blitz. The Jet Rover suddenly appeared over the crest of a hill adjacent to the base. The machine made for her for a moment before being struck by a rocket. The ship shuttered heavily, and tilted in air. "Shit!" Sophie exclaimed aloud as she brought a hammer-like cylinder down on a man. That ship was her ticket out of here, not to mention the Rovers that were onboard!

She watched as the jet, out of her range of assistance, began to crumble as it hovered. An explosion suddenly ripped the ship in half, sending the cockpit tumbling toward the ground. Sophie wasted no time, breaking into a full sprint. Using her power, Sophie propelled herself into the air, not even knowing she could do such a thing. Still a great distance from the falling jet, Sophie used a massive amount of her energy to throw a large slate of snow across the ground. Using the water in the air, she threw herself forward across the snowfield she'd created and used her power to make the field act rather similar to a giant slip-and-slide. The flaming wreck was only a hundred feet from the ground. Flying faster than she knew she could, Sophie managed to get the jet into range. She reached out, and trapped the mass of burning metal in a small globe of ice balls. She let it down on the ground. The two Road Rovers emerged, rubbing their heads. Blitz vomited across the grass.

"Sorry to break it to you, but we're _far_ from done here!" Sophie called, even as a blaster shot hit her back. "Gha!"

The suit absorbed the deadly force of the shot, but it still burned like slapped sunburn. Sophie flipped around and froze the man solid. Soldiers were already pouring down on them. "Remember what White said, people!" one of them called.

"They knew we were coming!" Bliss called as she volleyed off several blaster rounds.

"How?" Sophie asked.

"Who cares?" Blitz asked as he fired off his blaster pistol. "Let's just find some way out of here!"

"Agreed!" Sophie called back, stumbling slightly as the loss of energy from her extensive use of power hit. She blinked several times before coming back into focus. The blaster fire had stopped. The guards were all still present, but none were shooting. "What the…?"

Sophie nearly jumped out of her skin as a finger tapped her shoulder. She turned, expecting to see Blitz or Bliss. Instead, she stood face to face with a canosapien who looked rather like a mummy in a gasmask. The canosapien's eyes were death-gray, and his fur, where it was still visible, was bone white. _The one from the news!_ Sophie realized.

"Please surrender to avoid further bloodshed." He said in a horrible, mechanical voice. Bliss and Blitz both studied the newcomer as well. The canosapien simply stared at Sophie. When she didn't speak, he asked, "You will not surrender peacefully, then?"

"What's wrong with you?" Bliss asked, looking at the medical wrappings. "Who are you?"

The canosapien looked back at her through the corner of his eye. "I am Arkantos, soldier of Master White, who is in association with General Havoc, and friend to all of those who will serve our noble cause." He studied her, and then Blitz. His neck fur bristles, and his arms flexed. Everyone stood dead-still as tension in the air built. "Will you surrender peacefully?" the mummy-dog asked one last time.

Bliss was the first to move, she threw a flying scissor-kick with a loud "Haya!"

The mummy-dog sidestepped the attack, planting an elbow heavily onto Bliss's lower back. Bliss skidded across the ground on her rump. "Why you little…!"

Arkantos jumped on top of Bliss. He dug his claws into her combat armor, and threw her against a building across the street. Sophie and Blitz both jumped into action. Sophie threw several razor sharp icicles, and Blitz swung at Arkantos with extended claws.

Arkantos dropped to the ground just in time for the ice spikes to fly overhead. He almost didn't have time to react to the flashing claws of Blitz. The Doberman swung wildly with anger at the mummy-dog. Despite himself, Arkantos smiled. He threw a knee into the German dog's stomach, and used his opponent's moment of imbalance to send him flying toward the Malamute.

The well-furred dog was surprisingly agile, bending at the knees to avoid her flying comrade. No sooner did her eyes take hold of Arkantos than the flying ice resumed. One particular icicle caught Arkantos right across the face, cleanly opening a hole in the side of his gas mask. Arkantos gasped out of reflex, and was instantly stricken by stinging pain.

The mummy dog moved as though to attack, but a pulse of air smashed against his back, sending him crashing face first into the ground.

The mummy-dog let out a screeching roar as the tissue of his lungs literally lit on fire as the Ribsonis in his blood reacted with the nitrogen. Arkantos glared through his pain to see that all three Rovers had vanished, and a stream of soldiers were taking pursuit into the surrounding grassland.

"I will find you!" he screamed after them. "And I will kill you!"

**Hey, all. This is Stephen89. This is as far as S.C. Wolfe ever got. The story remained unfinished, though Wolfe did draw up some outlines for the final two chapters. These will be posted sometime soon, as I've not had time yet to finish them.**

**Critics always welcome!**


End file.
